


J:;i':v 









;i!H,. 



'•.;;:;;!:;!::;: 



J;li 






mw 

{m-':: 



















V </* ^ 






.A c 






*=i. ' 










>- v^' 


,^- ^ 




o ^, 


^x ■/ , ^ 












'■,^- 






'/ - 






'/ C^^ 


0' 


S ^ 


%'« ^^:,. 


A*' . 


V 






0^'\""^X^' 






O y 



feT^J- 



'^^. .^X^^ 



.-.V 






'^' /^er'-'- 



^ "^ . 



.0 0, 



s^^O 



,> .. ^ " " /■ 






x'fr 



'^■.<S^' :d 



-.^^' ■^^, 



^{p'V ^^c;' -;. 



A 



^^y::.^'^ "" 



* r. ., n ^ \\^ ci^ * .a- V 






'^ .^ 



% 






^- 



.0^ 



x^' -V 



'^^'\^^\.^'«. %/' 



.A^* V 



' '^^ v^^~^^C^>. 



Ou 



" ^ t > 
















^, v-^ 



\ ^ 



" ■, -. o ^ A-^ '.- 






'MM: ■^■'^' 



.'P <> 






c?\.\^;. 



O- V 



■^00^ 



A -/% 












^" ;MM- ^'^^ 



-^^ v^ 






% = '■%- 






^,% '■ 



00^ 






* ■ V « ^ ^ - 



-V'. .\>v^ 



\^^ 



.V . 






i^-',,--i.>-%-\„0 






V <p. 



^ s^\:! 









0^ 



.x\^ 












ki^ ''t. \ 

^ %;>, 






,d^ 









SI 









.s- 






tP/- '^^. .v^^^' ." 



-^ 






^-^^ 









LETTERS OF 
CELIA THAXTER 



EDITED BY HER FRIENDS 
A. F. AND R. L. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(^be CiitersiDe J^r^gg, ^TambriDoc 

1897 



MOUNT PLEASANT BRANCH 



T53613 



Copyright, 1895, 
By ROLAND THAXTER. 

All rights reserved. 



SIXTH EDITION. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 



TKANBPBR 
fit O, PUBLIC LIBRARY 
BBPT. lO, 1940 



446549 



DISTRICT OP COLUMBIA PROPERTT 
TRANSFERRED FROM PUBLIC LIBRARY 



NOTE 

This volume, made up of extracts from the 
letters of Celia Thaxter, will serve, we trust, 
to give an idea, even to those who never knew 
her, of her nature and development. 

Except for a light from within, which irradi- 
ated the world she lived in, her life could 
easily have worn the sad-colored hues of ordi- 
nary mortality. But the radiance of her nature 
was like an ever-rising sun of affection, con- 
stantly warming the hearts whereon it shone ; 
and where was the pilgrim w^ho did not gladly 
open his window to that East ? 



LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS 

/ 

FAGB 
POKTEAIT OF MR8. ThAXTER, IN HER GARDEN, 

taken about 1890 . . . Frontispiece 
Profile Portrait, taken about 1855 . . . 12 '' 
Mrs. Thaxter at her painting table, taken 



about 1892 218 



CELIA THAXTER 

BORN JUNE, 1835; DIED AUGUST, 1894 

If it were ever intended that a desolate 
island in the deep sea should be inhabited by 
one solitary family, then indeed Celia Thaxter 
was the fitting daughter of such a house. 

In her history of the group of islands, which 
she calls '^ Among the Isles of Shoals," she por- 
trays, in a prose which for beauty and wealth 
of diction has few rivals, the unfolding of her 
own nature under influences of sky and sea, 
and solitude and untrammeled freedom, such 
as have been almost unknown to civilized hu- 
manity in any age of the world. She speaks 
also of the effect produced, as she fancied, upon 
the minds of men by the eternal sound of the 
sea ; a tendency to wear away the edge of 
human thought and perception. But this was 
far from being the case with regard to herself. 
Her eyesight was keener, her speech more 
distinct, the lines of her thoughts more clearly 
defined, her verse more strongly marked in its 



IV CELIA THAXTER 

form, and the accuracy of her memory more 
to be relied upon, than was the case with al- 
most any one of her contemporaries. Her 
painting, too, upon porcelain possessed the 
same character. Her knowledge of the flowers, 
and especially of the seaweeds, with which she 
decorated it, was so exact that she did not re- 
quire the originals before her vision. They 
were painted upon her mind's eye, where every 
filament and every shade seemed to be recorded. 
These " green growing things " had been the 
beloved companions of her childhood, as thjey 
continued to be of her womanhood, and even 
to reproduce their forms in painting was a de- 
light to her. The written descriptions of nat- 
ural objects gave her history a place among 
the pages which possess a perennial existence. 
While White's " Selborne," and the pictures of 
Bewick, and Thoreau's "Walden," and the 
" Autobiography of E-ichard Jefferies " endure, 
so long will " Among the Isles of Shoals " hold 
its place with all lovers of nature. She says in 
one place : " All the pictures over which I dream 
are set in this framework of the sea, that 
sparkled and sang, or frowned and threatened, 
in the ages that are gone as it does to-day. " 



CELIA THAXTER V 

The solitude of Celia Thaxter's childhood, 
which was not solitude, surrounded as she was 
with the love of a father and a mother all ten- 
derness, and brothers dear to her as her own 
life, developed in the child strange faculties. 
She was five years old when the family left 
Portsmouth, — old enough, given her inborn 
power of enjoyment of nature, to delight in 
the free air and the wonderful sights around 
her. 

Her father seems to have been a man of awful 
energy of will. Some disappointment in his 
hope of a public career, it has been said, de- 
cided him to take the step of withdrawing him- 
self forever from the world of the mainland, 
and this attitude he appears to have sustained 
unflinchingly to the end. Her mother, with a 
heart stayed as unflinchingly upon love and 
obedience, seems to have followed him without 
a murmur, leaving every dear association of the 
past as though it had not been. From this 
. moment she became, not the slave, but the 
queen of her affections, and when she died, in 
1877, the sun appeared to set upon her daugh- 
ter's life. On the morning after Mrs. Thaxter's 
sudden death, seventeen years later, a friend 



VI CELIA THAXTER . 

asked her eldest son where his mother was, 
with the intent to discover if she had been well 
enough to leave her room. '' Oh," he replied, 
" her mother came in the night and took her 
away." This reply showed how deeply all who 
were near to Celia Thaxter were impressed with 
the fact that to see her mother again was one of 
the deepest desires of her heart. 

The development wrought in her eager char- 
acter by those early days of exceptional expe- 
rience gives a new sense of what our poor 
humanity may achieve, left face to face with the 
vast powers of nature. 

In speaking of the energy of Samuel Haley, 
one of the early settlers of the islands, she says 
he learned to live as independently as possi- 
ble of his fellow-men ; " for that is one of the 
first things a settler on the Isles of Shoals finds 
it necessary to learn." Her own lesson was 
learned perfectly. The sunrise was as familiar 
to her eyes as the sunset, and early and late 
the activity of her mind was rivaled by the - 
ceaseless industry of her hands. 

Appledore was too far away in winter from 
the village at. Star Island for any regular or 
frequent communication between them. Even 



CELIA THAXTER VU 

SO late as in the month of May she records 
watching a little fleet beating up for shelter 
tinder the lee of Appledore to ride out a storm. 
" They were in continual peril. ... It was 
not pleasant to watch them as the early twi- 
light shut down over the vast weltering deso- 
lation of the sea, to see the slender masts wav- 
ing helplessly from one side to another. . . . 
Some of the men had wives and children watch- 
ing them from lighted windows at Star. What 
a fearful night for them ! They could not tell 
from hour to hour, through the thick darkness, 
if yet the cables held ; they could not see till 
daybreak whether the sea had swallowed up 
their treasures. I wonder the wives were not 
white-haired when the sun rose and showed 
them those little specks yet rolling in the break- 
ers ! '' How clearly these scenes were photo- 
graphed on the sensitive plate of her mind ! 
She never forgot nor really lost sight of her 
island people. Her sympathy drew them to 
her as if they were her own, and the little 
colony of Norwegians was always especially dear 
to her. " How pathetic," she says, " the gath- 
ering of women on the headlands, when out of 
the sky swept the squall that sent the small 



Vlll CELIA THAXTER 

boat staggering before it, and blinded the eyes, 
already drowned in tears, with sudden rain that 
hid sky and sea and boats from their eager, 
gaze ! '' 

What she was, what her sympathy was, to 
those people, no one can ever quite express. 
The deep devotion of their service to her 
brothers and to herself, through the long soli- 
tude of winter and the storm of summer vis- 
itors, alone could testify. Such service cannot 
be bought : it is the devotion born of affection 
and gratitude and admiration. Speaking of one 
of the young women who grew up under her 
eye, she often said : '^ What could I do in this 
world without Mina Berntsen ? I hope she will 
be with me when I die.'' And there indeed, 
at the last, was Mina, to receive the latest 
word and to perform the few sad offices. 

To tell of the services Mrs. Thaxter ren- 
dered to some of the more helpless people 
about her, in the dark season, when no assist- 
ance from the mainland could be hoped for, 
would make a long and noble story in itself. 
Her good sense made her an excellent doctor ; 
the remedies she understood she was always 
on hand to apply at the right moment. Some- 



CELIA THAXTER IX 

times she was unexpectedly called to assist in 
the birth of a child, when knowledge and 
strength she was hardly aware of seemed to be 
suddenly developed. But the truth was she 
could do almost anything ; and only those who 
knew her in these humbler human relations 
could understand how joyous she was in the 
exercise of her duties, or how well able to per- 
form them. Writing to Mina from the Shoals 
once in March, she says : " This is the time to 
be here ; this is what I enjoy ! To wear my 
old clothes every day, grub in the ground, dig 
dandelions and eat them too, plant my seeds 
and watch them, fly on the tricycle, row in a 
boat, get into my dressing-gown right after 
tea and make lovely rag rugs all the evening, 
and nobody to disturb us, — tJiis is fun ! '' In 
the house and out of it she was capable of 
everything. How beautiful her skill was as a 
dressmaker, the exquisite lines in her own black 
or gray or white dresses testified to every one 
who ever saw her. She never wore any other 
colors, nor was anything like " trimming '' ever 
seen about her ; there were only the fine, free 
outlines, and a white handkerchief folded care- 
fully about her neck and shoulders. 



X CELIA THAXTER 

In her young days it was the same, with a 
difference ! She was slighter in figure then, 
and overflowing with laughter, the really beau- 
tiful but noisy laughter which died away as 
the repose of manner of later years fell upon 
her. I can remember her as I first saw her, 
with the sea -shells which she always wore 
then around her neck and wrists, and a gray 
poplin dress defining her lovely form. She 
talked simply and fearlessly, while her keen 
eyes took in everything around her ; she paid 
the tribute of her instantaaeous laughter to the 
wit of others, — never too eager to speak, and 
never unwilling. Her sense of beauty, not 
vanity, caused her to make the most of the 
good physical points she possessed ; therefore, 
although she grew old early, the same general 
features of her appearance were preserved. She 
was almost too well known even to strangers, 
in these later years at the Shoals, to make it 
worth while to describe the white hair carefully 
put up to preserve the shape of the head, and 
the small silver crescent w^hich she wore above 
her forehead ; but her manner had become very 
quiet and tender, more and more affectionate to 
her friends, and appreciative of all men. One 



CELIA THAXTER XI 

of those who knew her latterly wrote me : 
" Many of her letters show her boundless sym- 
pathy, her keen appreciation of the best in those 
whom she loved, and her wonderful growth in 
beauty and roundness of character. And how 
delightful her enthusiasms were ! As pure and 
clear as those of a child ! She was utterly un- 
like any one in the world, so that few people 
really understood her. But it seems to me that 
her trials softened and mellowed her, until she 
became like one of her own beautiful flowers, 
perfect in her full development ; then in a night 
the petals fell, and she was gone." 

The capabilities which were developed in her 
by the necessities of the situation, during her 
life at the Shoals in winter, were more various 
and remarkable than can be fitly told. The 
glimpses which we get in her letters of the 
many occupations show what energy she brought 
to bear upon the difficulties of the place. 

In " Among the Isles of Shoals " she says : 
" After winter has fairly set in, the lonely 
dwellers at the Isles of Shoals find life quite as 
much as they can manage, being so entirely 
thrown upon their own resources that it requires 
all the philosophy at their disposal to answer 



xil CELIA THAXTER 

the demand. One goes to sleep in the muffled 
roar of the storm, and wakes to find it still 
raging with senseless fury." 

It was not extraordinary that the joy of hu- 
man intercourse, after such estrangement, be- 
came a rapture to so loving a nature as Celia 
Laighton's ; nor that, very early, before the 
period of fully ripened womanhood, she should 
have been borne away from her island by a 
husband, a man of birth and education, who 
went as missionary to the wild fisher folk on 
the adjacent island called Star. 

The exuberant joy of her unformed maiden- 
hood, with its power of self-direction, attracted 
the shy, intellectual student nature of Mr. 
Thaxter. He could not dream that this care- 
less, happy creature possessed the strength and 
sweep of wing which belonged to her own sea- 
gull. In good hope of teaching and develop- 
ing her, of adding much in which she was 
uninstructed to the wisdom which the influences 
of nature and the natural affections had bred in 
her, he carried his wife to a quiet inland home, 
where three children were very soon born to 
them. Under the circumstances, it was not ex- 
traordinary that his ideas of education were 



CELIA THAXTER XI n 

not altogether successfully applied ; she required 
more strength than she could summon, more 
adaptability than many a grown woman could 
have found, to face the situation, and life be- 
came difficult and full of problems to them 
both. Their natures were strongly contrasted, 
but perhaps not too strongly to complement 
each other, if he had fallen in love with her as 
a woman, and not as a child. His retiring, 
scholarly nature and habits drew him away 
from the world ; her overflowing, sun-loving 
being, like a solar system in itself, reached out 
on every side, rejoicing in all created things. 

Her introduction to the Avorld of letters was 
by means of her first poem, " Land-Locked," 
which, by the hand of a friend, was brought to 
the notice of James Kussell Lowell, at that 
time editor of '^The Atlantic.'' He printed it 
at once, without exchanging a word ^with the 
author. She knew nothing about it until the 
magazine was laid before her. This recogni- 
tion of her talent was a delight indeed, and 
it was one of the happiest incidents in a life 
which was already overclouded with difficulties 
and sorrow. It will not be out of place to re- 
print this poem here, because it must assure 



xiv CELIA THAXTER 

every reader of the pure poetic gift which was 
in her. In form, in movementj and in thought 
it is as beautiful as her latest work. 

LAND-LOCKED. 

Black lie the hills ; swiftly doth daylight flee ; 
And, catching gleams of sunset's dj'ing smile, 
Through the dusk land for many a changing mile 

The river runneth softly to the sea. 

O happy river, could I follow thee ! 

3'earning heart, that never can be still ! 

O wistful eyes, that watch the steadfast hill, 
Longing for level line of solemn sea! 

Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds, 
Beautj^ and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight, 
All summer's glory thine from morn till night, 

And life too full of joy for uttered words. 

Neither am I ungrateful ; but I dream 
Deliciously how twilight falls to-night 
Over the glimmering water, how the light 

Dies blissfully away, until I seem 

To feel the wind, sea-scented, on my cheek. 
To catch the sound of dusky, flapping sail, 
And dip of oars, and voices on the gale 

Afar off, calling low, — my name they speak I 

O Earth ! thy summer song of joy may soar 
Ringing to heaven in triumph. I but crave 
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave 

That breaks in tender music on the shore. 

With the growth of Mrs. Thaxter's children 



CELIA THAXTER XV 

and the death of her father, the love and duty- 
she owed her mother caused her to return in 
the winter to the Shoals, although a portion of 
the summer was passed there as well. 

But she had already tasted of the tree of 
knowledge, and the world outside beckoned to 
her with as fascinating a face as it ever pre- 
sented to any human creature. It was during 
one of these returning visits to the Shoals that 
much of the delightful book from which I have 
quoted was written ; a period when she had 
already learned something of the charms of 
society, — sufficient to accentuate her apprecia- 
tion of her own past, and to rejoice in whai a 
larger life now held in store for her. 

Lectures, operas, concerts, theatres, pictures, 
music above all, — what were they not to her ! 
Did artists ever before find such an eye and such 
an ear ? She brought to them a spirit prepared 
for harmony, but utterly ignorant of the science 
of painting or music until the light of art sud- 
denly broke upon her womanhood. Of what 
this new world was to her we find some hint, of 
course, in her letters ; but no human lips, not 
even her own exuberant power of expression, 
could ever say how her existence was enriched 



XVI CELIA THAXTER 

and made beautiful tlirougli music. Artists 
who sang to her, or those who rehearsed the 
finest music on the piano or violin or flute, or 
those who brought their pictures and put them 
before her while she listened, — they alone, in a 
measure, understood what these things signified, 
and how she was lifted quite away by them 
from the ordinary level of life. They were 
inspired to do for her what they could seldom 
do for any other creature, and her generous 
response, overflowing, almost extravagant in 
expression, was never half enough to begin to 
tell the new life they brought to her. 

Mrs. Thaxter found herself, as the years went 
on, the centre of a company who rather selected 
themselves than were selected from the vast 
number of persons who frequented her brothers' 
" house of entertainment '^ at the islands. Her 
" parlor, '^ as it was called, was a milieu quite 
as interesting as any of the ^'salons'' of the 
past. Her pronounced individuality forbade 
the intrusion even of a fancy of comparison 
with anything else, and equally forbade the 
possibility of rivalry. There was only one 
thought in the mind of the frequenters of her 
parlor, — that of gratitude for the pleasure and 



CELIA THAXTER xvil 

opportunity she gave them, and a genuine wish 
to please her and to become her friends. She pos- 
sessed the keen instincts of a child with regard 
to people. If they were unlovable to her, if 
they were for any reason unsympathetic, no- 
thing could bring her to overcome her dislike. 
She was in this particular more like some wild 
thing than a creature of the nineteenth century ; 
indeed, one of her marked traits was a curi- 
ous intractability of nature. I believe that no 
worldly motive ever influenced her relation with 
any human creature. Of course these native 
qualities made her more ardently devoted in her 
friendships ; but it went hardly with her to in- 
gratiate those persons for whom she felt a natu- 
ral repulsion, or even sometimes to be gentle 
with them. Later in life she learned to call 
no man '^ common or unclean j " but coming 
into the world, as she did, full grown, like 
Minerva in the legend, with keen eyes, and 
every sense alive to discern pretension, untruth, 
ungodliness in guise of the church, and all the 
uncleanness of the earth, these things were as 
much a surprise to her as it was, on the other 
hand, to find the wondrous world of art and 
the lives of the saints. Perhaps no large social 



XVlll CELIA THAXTEE 

success was ever achieved upon such unworldly 
conditions ; she swung as free as possible of 
the world of society and its opinions, forming a 
centre of her own, built up on the sure founda- 
tions of love and loyalty. She saw as much 
as any woman of the time of large numbers of 
people, and she was able to give them the best 
kind of social enjoyment, — music, pictures, 
poetry, and conversation ; the latter sometimes 
poor and sometimes good, according to the drift 
which swept through her beautiful room. Mrs. 
Thaxter was generous in giving invitations to 
her parlor, but to its frequenters she said, " If 
people do not enjoy what they find, they must 
go their way ; my work and the music will not 
cease.'' The study of nature and art was al- 
ways going forward either on or around her 
work-table. The keynote of conversation was 
struck there for those who were able to hear it. 
We were reminded of William Blake's verse : — 

"I give you the end of a golden string, 
Only wind it into a ball, 
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, 
Built in Jerusalem wall." 

Here it was that Whittier could be heard at his 
best, sympathetic, stimulating, uplifting, as he 



CELIA THAXTER xix 

alone could be, and yet as he, with his Quaker 
training to silence, was so seldom moved to 
prove himself. Here he would sit near her 
hour after hour ; sometimes mending her seolian 
harp while they talked together, sometimes read- 
ing aloud to the assembled company. 

Her gratitude to the men and women who 
brought music to her door knew no limit ; it 
was strong, deep, and unforgetting. "What 
can I ever do for them,'' she would say, " when 
I remember the joy they bring me ! " 

" The dignity of labor " is a phrase we have 
often heard repeated in modern life, but it was 
one unnecessary to be spoken by Celia Thaxter. 
It may easily be said of her that one of the 
finest lessons she unconsciously taught was not 
only the value of labor, but the joy of doing 
things well. The necessities of her position, 
as I have already indicated, demanded a great 
deal, but she responded to the need with a readi- 
ness and generosity great enough to extort admi- 
ration from those who knew her. How much 
she contributed to the comfort of the lives of 
those she loved at the Shoals we have endeav- 
ored to show ; how beautiful her garden was 
there, in the summer, all the world could see ; 



XX CELIA THAXTER 

but at one period there was also a farm at Kittery 
Point, to be made beautiful and comfortable by 
her industry, where one of her sons still lives ; 
and a pied a terre in Boston or in Portsmouth, 
whither she came in the winter with her eldest 
son, who was especially dependent upon her 
love and care : and all these changes demanded 
much of her time and strength. 

She was certainly one of the busiest women 
in the world. Writing from Kittery Point, 
September 6, 1880, she says : ^^ It is divinely 
lovely here, and the house is charming. I have 
brought a servant over from the hotel, and it is 
a blessing to be able to make them all comforta- 
ble ; to set them down in the charming dining- 
room overlooking the smooth, curved crescent 
of sandy beach, with the long rollers breaking 
white, and the Shoals looming on the far sea- 
line. . . . But oh, how tired we all get ! I 
shall be quite ready for my rest ! Your weari- 
est, loving C. T.'' 

This note gives a picture of her life. She 
was always helping to make a bright spot around 
her ; to give of herself in some way. There is 
a bit in her book which illustrates this instinct. 
The incident occurred during a long, dreary 



CELIA THAXTER XXl 

storm at the Shoals. Two men had come in 
a boat, asking for help. " A little child had 
died at Star Island, and they could not sail to 
the mainland, and had no means to construct a 
coffin among themselves. All day I watched 
the making of that little chrysalis; and at 
night the last nail was driven in, and it lay 
across a bench, in the midst of the litter of the 
workshop, and a curious stillness seemed to ema- 
nate from the senseless boards. I went back to 
the house and gathered a handful of scarlet ge- 
ranium, and returned with it through the rain. 
The brilliant blossoms were sprinkled with glit- 
tering drops. I laid them in the little coffin, 
while the wind wailed so sorrowfully outside, 
and the rain poured against the windows. Two 
men came through the mist and storm, and one 
swung the light little shell to his shoulder, and 
they carried it away, and the gathering darkness 
shut down and hid them as they tossed among 
the waves. I never saw the little girl, but 
where they buried her I know ; the lighthouse 
shines close by, and every night the quiet, con- 
stant ray steals to her grave and softly touches 
it, as if to say, with a caress, ^ Sleep well ! Be 
thankful you are spared so much that I see 



XXU CELIA THAXTER 

humanity endure, fixed here forever where I 
stand.' '' 

We have seen the profound love she felt for, 
and the companionship she found in, nature and 
natural objects ; but combined with these senti- 
ments, or developed simply by her love to speak 
more directly, was a very uncommon power of 
observation. This power grew day by day, and 
the delightful correspondence which existed be- 
tween Bradford Torrey and herself, although 
they had never met face to face, bears witness 
to her constant mental record and memory re- 
specting the habits of bird§ and woodland man- 
ners. Every year we find her longing for larger 
knowledge ; books and men of science attracted 
her; and if her life had been less intensely 
laborious, in order to make those who belonged 
to her comfortable and happy, what might she 
not have achieved ! Her nature was replete 
with boundless possibilities, and we find our- 
selves asking the old, old question. Must the 
artist forever crush the wings by which he flies 
against such terrible limitations ? — a question 
never to be answered in this world. 

Her observations began with her earliest 
breath at the islands. " I remember," she says, 



CELIA THAXTER xxiii 

" in the spring, kneeling on the ground to seek 
the first blades of grass that pricked through the 
soil, and bringing them into the house to study 
and wonder over. Better than a shopful of 
toys they were to me ! Whence came their 
color ? How did they draw their sweet, re- 
freshing tint from the brown earth, or the lim- 
pid air, or the white light ? Chemistry was 
not at hand to answer me, and all her wisdom 
would not have dispelled the wonder. Later, 
the little scarlet pimpernel charmed me. It 
seemed more than a flower; it was like a hu- 
man thing. I knew it by its homely name of 
^ poor man's weather-glass.' It was so much 
wiser than I ; for when the sky was yet with- 
out a cloud, softly it clasped its small red petals 
together, folding its golden heart in safety from 
the shower that was sure to come. How could 
it know so much ? " 

Whatever sorrows life brought to her, and 
they were many and of the heaviest, this exqui- 
site enjoyment of nature, the tender love and 
care for every created thing within her reach, 
always stayed her heart. To see her lift a flower 
in her fingers, — fingers which gave one a sense 
of supporting everything which she touched, 



XXIV CELIA THAXTER 

expressive, too, of fineness in every fibre, al- 

though strong and worn with labor, — to see 

her handle these wonderful creatures which she 

worshiped, was something not to be forgotten. 

The lines of Keats, 

" Open afresh your rounds of starry folds, 
Ye ardent marigolds! " 

■ were probably oftener flitting through her mind 
or from her lips than through the mind or from 
the lips of any since Keats wrote them. She 
remembered that he said he thought his "in- 
tensest pleasure in life had been to watch the 
growth of flowers," but she was sure he never 
felt their beauty more devoutly " than the little 
half-savage being who knelt, like a fire-wor- 
shiper, to watch the unfolding of those golden 
disks." 

The time came at last, as it comes to every 
human being, for asking the reason of the faith 
that was in her. It was difiicult for her to 
reply. Her heart had often questioned whether 
she believed, and what ; and yet, as she has 
said, she could not keep her faith out of her 
poems if she would. We find the following 
passage in " Among the Isles of Shoals," which 
throws a light beyond that of her own lantern. 



CELIA THAXTER XXV 

** When the boat was out late/' she says, " in 
soft, moonless summer nights, I used to light a 
lantern, and, going down to the water's edge, 
take my station between the timbers of the 
slip, and, with the lantern at my feet, sit wait- 
ing in the darkness, quite content, knowing my 
little star was watched for, and that the safety 
of the boat depended in a great measure upon 
it. I felt so much a part of the Lord's uni- 
verse, I was no more afraid of the dark than 
the waves or winds ; but I was glad to hear at 
last the creaking of the mast and the rattling 
of the rowlocks as the boat approached." 

" A part of the Lord's universe," — that 
Celia Thaxter always felt herself to be, and for 
many years she was impatient of other teaching 
than what nature brought to her. As life went 
on, and the mingled mysteries of human pain 
and grief were unfolded, she longed for a closer 
knowledge. At first she sought it everywhere, 
and patiently, save in or through the churches ; 
with them she was long impatient. At last, 
after ardent search through the religious books 
and by means of the teachers of the Orient, the 
Bible was born anew for her, and the New Tes« 
tament became a fresh source of life. 



XXVI CELIA THAXTER 

Nothing was ever '^ born anew " in Celia 
Thaxter which she did not strive to share with 
others. She could keep nothing but secrets to 
herself. Joys, experiences of every kind, sor- 
rows and misfortunes, except when they could 
darken the lives of others, were all brought, 
open-handed and open-hearted, to those she 
loved. Her generosity knew no limits. 

There is a description by her of the flood 
which swept over her being, and seemed to carry 
her away from the earth, when she once saw 
the great glory of the Lord in a rainbow at the 
island. She hid her face from the wonder ; it 
was more than she could bear. " I felt then," 
she said, ^' how I longed to speak these things 
which made life so sweet, — to speak the wind, 
the cloud, the bird's flight, the sea's murmur, — 
and ever the wish grew ; " and so it was she 
became, growing from and with this wish, a poet 
the world will remember. Dr. Holmes said 
once in conversation that he thought the value 
of a poet to the world was not so much the 
pleasure that this or that poem might give to 
certain readers, or even perchance to posterity, 
as the fact that a poet was known to be one 
who was sometimes rapt out of himself into 



CELIA THAXTER XXVll 

the region of the Divine; that the spirit had 
descended upon him and taught him what he 
should speak. 

This is especially true of Celia Thaxter, 
whose life was divorced from worldliness, while 
it was instinct with the keenest enjoyment of 
life and of God's world. She liked to read 
her poems aloud when people asked for them ; 
and if there was ever a genuine reputation from 
doing a thing well, such a reputation was hers. 
From the first person who heard her the wish 
began to spread, until, summer after summer, 
in her parlor, listeners would gather, if she 
would promise to read to them. Night after 
night she has held her sway, with tears and 
smiles from her responsive little audiences, 
which seemed to gain new courage and light 
from what she gave them. Her unspeakably 
interesting nature was always betraying itself 
and shining out between the lines. Occasion- 
ally she yielded to the urgent claims brought 
to bear upon her by her friend Mrs. Johnson, of 
the Woman's Prison, and would go to read to 
the sad-eyed audience at Sherborn. Even those 
hearts dulled by wrong and misery awakened at 
the sound of her voice. It was not altogether 



XXVlll CELIA THAXTER 

this or that verse or ballad that made the tears 
flow, or brought a laugh from her hearers : it 
was the deep sympathy which she carried in 
her heart and which poured out in her voice ; 
a hope, too, for them, and for what they might 
yet become. She could not go frequently, — 
she was too deeply laden with responsibilities 
nearer home ; but it was always a holiday when 
she was known to be coming, and a season of 
light-heartedness to Mrs. Johnson as well as to 
the prisoners. 

It is a strange fallacy that a poet may not 
read his own verses well. Who beside the 
writer should comprehend every shade of mean- 
ing which made the cloud or sunshine of his 
poem ? Mrs. Thaxter certainly read her own 
verse with a fullness of suggestion which no 
other reader could have given it, and her voice 
was sufficient, too, although not loud or strik- 
ing, to fill and satisfy the ear of the listener. But 
at the risk of repetition we recall that it was her 
own generous, beautiful nature, unlike that of 
any other, which made her reading helpful to 
all who heard her. She speaks somewhere of 
the birds on her island as " so tame, knowing 
how well they are beloved, that they gather on 



CELIA THAXTER XXlX 

the window-sills, twittering and fluttering, gay 
and graceful, turning their heads this way and 
that, eying you askance without a trace of fear." 
And so it was with the human beings who 
came to know her. They were attracted, they 
came near, they flew under her protection, and 
were not disappointed of their rest. 



LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER 



The seclusion of Celia Laighton from the 
world during the early years of her life will 
sufficiently account for the absence of any 
letters during that period. The only record 
of her childhood is what she has given in 
her book "Among the Isles of Shoals." 

No letters have been found earlier than 
1856, when ]\Irs. Thaxter was little more 
than twenty years old. The very first are 
addressed to Mrs. Hoxie, and are more auto- 
biographical than any others written at this 
period. They begin abruptly. 
I 'm ^ desperately afraid I did n't sufficiently 
express my gratitude to Mary for her thought- 
ful kindness in writing to me so soon after 
we had got to this place "where people want 
letters " (there never was a truer remark). You 
must thank her again, if you please, for me, 
and tell her I hope she got the sweet peas I 
sent, and that I shall write her by and by more 
1 To Elizabeth Curzon Hoxie. Appleclore, May 25, 1856. 



2 LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER [1856 

of a letter than the scrap of a note accompany- 
ing them. 

I wonder Bob isn't at the head of every 
class in everything. How I should like to see 
him, and dear Nanny and Neddy! We were 
really dreadfully sorry to hear how near we were 
to seeing them that morning we left Newbury- 
port, and yet missed it. I declare I would have 
given almost anything for a sight of their dear 
little bright faces. Karly is for sending the 
Golden Eagle right up the river for them to bring 
them over here, — that was his suggestion, — 
directly. Tell Nanny — dear, precious little girl 
— that Karly does lots of things to help me ; 
and tell them both that Karly and "little Non '' 
(as he calls himself and we call him now) never 
forget them, but talk about them every day. 
Baby still calls wistfully, "Nanny! Neddy!" 
and seems to wonder they don't come when he 
wants them so much. I wonder how many 
squares of patchwork Nan has made since I left 
the Mill. John goes up and down the piazza 
steps and runs off to where a calf is tied close 
by, and falls into a wild-rose bush and gets his 
fat legs full of briers, struggles up again, only 
to fall on a stone and make a black and blue 
spot on his knee, gets off that and falls into a 
raspberry bush, and so on indefinitely, while his 



1857] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 3 

mother and father and grandmother, when they 
do notice him, burst into shouts of inextinguish- 
able laughter, for he is the most ridiculous ob- 
ject ever beheld, just as round as an apple and 
broad as he is long, toddling and waddling and 
tumbling in every direction. He can say any- 
thing now, and it is too funny to hear him 
talk. 

My eyes are almost shut from weariness and 
sleepiness, and I shall have to stop writing and 
send you this poor little stupid scrawl after all, 
dear Lizzy. But, dear, take the will for the 
deed; I have the heart to write you twenty 
pages and hundreds of loving words. Kiss the 
darling children for me. I inclose a piece of 
baby's dress for sweetest Nan to make a little 
square of. Give kindest love to John and 
mamma and Mary, and believe me ever most 
affectionately yours, Celia. 

How do George Curtis and Anna progress? 
I long to hear about them. 

Oh,^ these exemplary housekeepers, how much 
they have to do ! I feel as if I were sinning 
against my conscience when I write a letter on 
any day but Sunday, because it is inevitable that 
1 To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, January 38, 1857. 



4 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1857 

I should neglect some important duty to do it, 
and I never do do it except in a case of vital 
importance. It is a good thing, after steady 
trying, to have your husband pronounce you 
"virtuous" when you are doing your best, but 
sometimes it 's a great bore being exemplary. 
But there is another reason I have n't written 
to you, and that is because I have been wait- 
ing to finish something I have been making for 
dearest little Nankins, and I wanted to send 
the bundle when I wrote; but I can't wait any 
longer, and I can only say about the bundle 
that I hope by some means to propel it in your 
direction sometime before next Saturday. 

Tell Mary her letter was received a day or 
two ago, and was read with infinite applause 
and unbounded merriment. I don't know when 
we have enjoyed anything so much. Levi goes 
off into the tenderest reminiscences of the Mills, 
and thinks of you all collectively and then sep- 
arately, and broods over the idea of seeing some 
of you. He keeps breaking out by fits and 
starts, "Don't you think Mrs. Curzon will come 
to Boston this winter?" and "Can't Lizzie be 
got up in the spring, don't you suppose ? " and 
" When tvill Margie and Mary get along ? " 

You don't know what a steady old drudge I 
have grown to be, and I 'm happy as the day is 



1857] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 5 

long, and the children are perfect "gardens of 
paradise," and Levi is beautiful and gentle and 
good and unselfish as mortal man can be. And 
we have splendid times. Such good evenings 
as we have ! And they are so fascinating some- 
times we don't break up the meeting till past 
eleven, never till after ten. We draw the table 
up to the roaring fire, and I take my work, and 
Levi reads to me; first he read "Aurora" (and 
you 're an abominable woman for not thinking 
it the beautifullest book that was ever written), 
then "Dred," which in spite of the little bird 
women, horrid little things, we enjoyed. Levi 
gave the negro talk with such gusto we had 
shouts of laughter over it. Next to "Dred" 
we read Dr. Kane's books, the two volumes of 
the Arctic expedition. Oh, how we did enjoy 
that! Full of beautiful pictures taken on the 
spot by Dr. Kane himself, which we looked at 
together and admired and commented upon and 
enjoyed as much as they could be enjoyed by 
anybody. Brave, splendid Dr. Kane! We 
watch the papers for every bit of news of him 
which floats to us from that far-ofi" tropical Cuba 
where he has gone to recover, if he can, from 
the everlasting chill he got among the icebergs 
with the thermometer seventy-five degrees below 
zero! Now we are reading Euskin's last vol- 



6 LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER [1857 

ume of "Modern Painters," and I declare I 
can't tell what we have the best times over, for 
we sometimes lose ourselves in wonder and ad- 
miration at him, and then shout with unbounded 
mirth over his impatient sarcasm, his down- 
rightness, if that's an allowable word; and 
fall into a great feeling of reverence occasionally 
over him and say to each other how true are 
Margie's ideas of the highest art because she 
follows nature so nobly and faithfully, — that is 
high art according to him; very few people do 
it faithfully. You don't know how entirely 
happy we are to be together again, with both 
children ; it seems as if we had found each other 
anew and never were so substantially happy 
before. The children keep so well it is almost 
alarming, not even having occasional colds, which 
I thought was the common lot of humanity. 
The scarlet fever is all around us in every di- 
rection too. Are n't we very happy to be able 
to hear Theodore Parker? Such preaching is 
of inestimable worth. The sermon I heard this 
afternoon was wonderful ; such power and pathos 
in a human voice was wonderful. I don't 
think there was a person in the house who kept 
tearless eyes through that sermon. He de- 
scribed the rapture of a father when his first- 
born son is put into his arms, so exquisitely, so 



1857] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 7 

truly, grew so enraptured himself in the descrip- 
tion, so carried away by his own feeling, that 
he was transfigured. He looked a god standing 
with outspread arms before us all, instead of 
the stern, grave, middle-aged man that had 
walked up to the reading-desk an hour before. 
And yet he never had a child ! How could he 
do that so inimitably ? Was it so perfect from 
the very reason that the rapture is denied him ? 
Oh, Lizzie, he does talk beautifully and won- 
derfully. He moves people to tears and to 
laughter; he carries all his audience along with 
him resistlessly ; he makes them quail under 
the weight of their own sins, and shows them 
then where is strength and hope and comfort, 
and sends one away cheerful and feeling infi- 
nitely better than when one came. If you 
could only hear him describe "Miss Matilda 
Caroline who has ruined her constitution pull- 
ing a bell-rope !^^ It is too rich. I don't see 
what I have done that the Lord has given me 
so great a delight among other delights as hear- 
ing and seeing and knowing this man. 

I 'm afraid you '11 think my letter very 
stupid, dear Lizzie. I was so glad to hear how 
comfortable you are in the dear little Mill. 
Levi thinks that a walk on the Artichoke 
would put a climax on his state of bliss. Beau- 



8 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1857 

tiful little river! How I should like to see it. 
Is Myra still with you ? If she is, remember me 
to her, and do not tell her how I swear at her 
every day I wear the dress she made for me, 
for it is continually giving out in all directions, 
and the wrists have taken up their position just 
below my elbows, whence they stubbornly refuse 
to stir. Do give my very best budget . of re- 
gards and remembrances and love to John, and 
kisses, ad libitum, to the children. 

Ever your affectionate 

Celia. 

To think of your ^ asking such a question as " Do 
I care about Charlotte Bronte " ! As if I did 
not care everything I am capable of caring for 
anything! As if Levi and I hadn't read her 
books with rapture, and hadn't looked forward 
to the publishing of Mrs. Gaskell's book about 
her as one of the most interesting things that 
could happen; as if we didn't lament her loss to 
the world every year of our lives ! Oh, Lizzie ! 
I 'm ashamed that you know so little of your 
friends. We are not so happy as to see the 
"Tribune." We have seen no extracts, there- 
fore. How nice they are making "Putnam's," 
are n't they ? We have had one extract from 
1 To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, March 28, 1857 



1857] LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER 9 

a letter of Bayard Taylor's, a spirited reindeer 
performance. 

The T s brought us home Guido's "Au- 
rora,^' engraved by Eaphael Morghen. You 
have seen the picture 1 Oh, so splendid as it 
is ! Levi and I look at it by the half-hour to- 
gether and find new beauties in it daily. 

Bless the children, how did it happen they 
were sick? John and Karl have grand times 
out doors, and get dirtier than a whole diction- 
ary can express. I do my own washing now, 
and think of you all the time, and get tired to 
death and half dead, but unlike you I fret and 
worry when things go wrong, and scold and 
fuss. Oh, for your patience ! How mine takes 
wing and leaves me forlorn and ugly and hor- 
rid! How it seems as if the weary load of 
things one makes out to do, with such expendi- 
ture of strength and nerves and patience, goes 
for naught, no manner of notice ever taken of 
all that is accomplished; but if anything is left 
undone, ah me, the hue and cry that is raised ! 
I don't think you can have any conception 
what an infinite source of pleasure and consola- 
tion under all trials Browning's "Men and 
Women " are to me. There is something satis- 
factory to every mood of the human mind in 
that book. Many of the shorter pieces I know 



10 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTEK [1857 

by heart, and you would laugh to hear the 

children, who catch everything from me, talking 

about 

" The patching house-leek's head of blossom winks 
Through the chinks," 

and so forth. Also you 'd be killed to hear 
John roar out "The splendor falls on castle 
walls, '^ etc., from beginning to end, and also 
"Half a league," etc. 

My heart is full of you all, this delicious 
spring weather. Tell Mamy I think the Whit- 
tier poem is one of the sweetest and freshest I 
ever saw of his. Give my best love to dearest 
mamma and all. How kind you are to write, 
dear Lizzie. Do beg them to write. Ever 
most affectionately your poor little helpless, 
foolish Celia. 

If you^ and I, Lizzie, only had a small por- 
tion of the time elegant young ladies fritter 
away, would n't we do wonders and wouldn't 
we be happy and make much of it 1 Heigho ! 
I never shall have any, I 'm afraid. Is n't 
Sally with you, or anybody? Are you any 
worse for the hard times? We're not; not 
having anything to lose, we 've lost nothing, 
and having no risks run, and nothing to do 
1 To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, Sunday, November 22d^ 



1857] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 11 

with anybody or anything in the way of get- 
ting a living, we 're no better nor worse than 
before the panic. Now the cold weather is 
come, I have a washerwoman, which is a relief, 
but the ironing is hideous, ungrateful that I 
am ! You have ever so much harder time than 
I, dear Lizzie. I do wish I could help you, and 
that we lived together. We 've had no sick- 
ness to speak of, yet, and I humbly trust in 
Providence we may get through the winter 
without any very horrid time. John is splen- 
didly well and comfortable and comforting and 
delightful. Karly, I think, is getting less ner- 
vous than he was. I try very hard to let him 
alone, but he is so mischievous that I can't help 
visiting him with small thunder occasionally, 
also spanks. Poor little spud! he is very 
loving and sometimes very sweet and gentle. 
Yesterday John came in from outdoors, red as 
a poppy and bellowing lustily. "Mamma, 
that naughty biddy won't let me take hold of 
her tail ! " and he howled with rage and I 
screamed with laughter. The biddies are fine. 
The other day we killed the old rooster, the 
magnificent sultan of the flock, and boiled him 
in a floured bag, and he was delicious. We 
had company to dinner, a strange young lady 
from Boston, and John kept saying "Please^ 



12 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1857 

Mamma, give me another piece of cockerel I '* 
to my immense private amusement. Since 
his majesty was decapitated all the other 
princes have nearly fought each other dead, 
and great will be the slaughter among them 
presently, by their human (or rather inhuman) 
keepers. Levi and I nearly expire over the 
performances of hens, and think of you often 
in connection. Oh, Lizzie, do you have races 
with things to get them eaten up ? What with 
trying to eat up the quinces, apples, squashes, 
pumpkins, etc., as fast as they get a leaning 
towards decay, we are obliged to eat very little 
else; everybody in the neighborhood is so rich 
there 's nobody to give them away to. I think 
Lamartine would be perfectly satisfied with our 
present diet. I 've just got rid of the last 
tomatoes, to my great satisfaction. I 've been 
lugging them about the county to my various 
friends for the last month, in the vain endeavor 
to get rid of them, and now there 's only one 
mess left. 

Thanks for the Murray. Next winter we 

shall regularly set about *s "education,'^ 

and a precious time we shall have of it. 

These early letters show Mrs. Thaxter to 
be the child she really was, despite her mar- 
ried estate. Much is omitted, but a frequent 



1857] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 13 

impatience with the conditions of life in such 
contrast to her unfettered youth is expressed 
in her own downright and amusing fashion. 
But the Lord knows, it 's no use borrowing 
trouble. Little Celia is — non est. I sigh for 
her; the children sigh in chorus. If we could 
unite our sighs with yours for the same cause, 
what a breeze we should raise ! The boys are 
in a kind of tremor of expectation of St. Nich- 
olas and his treasures. I want to hang up my 
stocking too, dreadfully; except that I feel it 
in my bones St. Nicholas would overlook it, I 
certainly should. Perhaps a certain friend will 
remember me, and make me a present of some 
cloth to make Levi six shirts, as she did once 
before, you know ! 

I devour books whenever I get a chance, read 
Dante and peel squash, h la Elizabeth Brontd, 
have got through Hell and Purgatory and am 
coming to Heaven now, thank fortune! We 
have just been reading " Quits ; " 'twould do 
well enough if one had the time for it. White 
Lies!! Don't mention 'em!.!! If the agony 
is n't piled sky-high I 'd like to know where 
you '11 find it. Imagine yourself Josephine, and 
Kaynal's face coming over that screen ! Good 
Lord be with us! what a situation, and the 
baby in her lap, " rustle-thump, rustle-thump " ! 



14 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1859 

How capital that is ! Levi will send you " The 
Box Tunnel" and "Propria Quae Maribus," I 
suppose; if he doesn't I will. He sends love 
and says he shall write speedily, and he wishes 
you were here. Dear Lizzie, do come and make 
us a good long visit, can't you ? and rest a little, 
poor little woman. I mean come and stay 
with me, and not go tearing round Boston and 
Brookline and Lord knows where. Bring Nan, 
or all; they would have fine times together. 
Does n't Bob have a vacation ? Do come, I beg 
and entreat, any time; we should only be too 
enchanted to see you, and the children would 
be in ecstasies to see yours. Karly sings, 

" The cars are ready and the horses are waiting, 
And I 'm bound to see m}-^ own Nanny Hoxie, 
I 'm bound to see my own N'anny Hoxie," 

and so on, ad libitum. His own idea; and 
it 's killing to hear the emphasis of the young 
man. 

I ^ have been enduring the severest stabs of con- 
science for the longest while, thinking of you 
almost every day and wishing with all my heart 
to write to you. First I had a siege of sick- 
ness, then a Gulf Stream of company. 

1 To E. C. Hoxie. Newton, January 30, 1859, Sunday 
Morning. 



1859] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 15 

Sunday night. I thought I should have so 
much time to-day to write and do all sorts of 
things, yet this is all I have been able to accom- 
plish! Now baby and his brothers are in bed 
and asleep and I feel like being in bed and 
asleep too, too sleepy to have any ideas left. 
How charmingly Nanny's letter was written! 
Tell her I shall answer it the very first chance I 
get. She may look forward to a very big letter 
all to herself very soon. I wish I could see 
her. I know how beautiful it always is at the 
mill, how beautiful in every way. Somehow 
" crude '' is the word that expresses this place. 
It seems to me at the world's end — lonely, 
un-get-at-able, uninteresting, not one beloved, 
friendly face within reach, no children for ours 
to play with ; but it might be a great deal worse 
too. I don't wish to be ungrateful, the Lord 
preserve us! With such a baby too! Lizzie, 
I'm fairly in raptures with this baby; never 
was in raptures before, always thought small of 
my own goslings, but this baby smiles the very 
heart out of my breast. He is too angelical for 
words to give any idea of him. Isn't it funny 
that he should be such a jolly, sweet little 
pleasant creature when his mamma was always 
so glum before he came? And he hasn't a 
name! Levi wants to call him David, but I 



16 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1859 

despise it, and Eoland, which, is the only other 
name he will listen to, isn't exactly satisfactory 
either. Dear me! if he had only been a girl 
there would have been no difficulty in naming 
him. 

I suppose you have seen by the papers that 
Mr. Weiss has resigned his ministry at New 
Bedford; he will probably take his family and 
come and live on his brains somewhere in this 
vicinity. He will not preach again, at least he 
doesn't mean to at present. 

Tell Margie, mother has half promised to 
come this Eebruary and see us, and that we are 
going to the island in March, for in the sum- 
mer Levi proposes wandering off to Mount De- 
sert or some such preposterous place. There 
can never be such a charming sea place as the 
islands; how can anybody want to go further? 
I do not, most certainly. 

Dearest Lizzie, I beg your pardon for trying 
to write to you when I 'm so infinitely stupid. 
I wish I could shake my own family off for a 
week and come and help you wash dishes and 
mend stockings and admire Neddy. Tell Mar- 
gie we 've got a new set of silver. New Year's 
present from grandmother, very solid, very 
heavy, very handsome, very horrid to take care 
of, have to keep drumming up the girls about 



1859] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 17 

it and going round with a nasty bit of wash- 
leather rubbing here and rubbing there. Give 
me my iron jug and iron spoon, say I with Mr. 
Thoreau. Susy Dabney gave Karly "AVee 
Willie Winkle's " nursery songs, and it is so 
charming. 

We take the semi- weekly "Tribune" and 
think of you. Isn't "Minister's Wooing" 
killing good? 

My darling little Nan : ^ — Would you 
like, some day when you have a little time, to 
go along the river bank with a piece of paper 
or something, and gather me some harebell 
seeds? If you could and would, I should be 
so very glad, for I want to get the dear lovely 
bells to grow here by our river as well as by 
yours, and I am afraid the roots I brought all 
the way from Newburyport and set out here, 
will not live. If I had some seeds I would 
plant them this fall and I thmk they 'd come 
up in the spring. 

How is mamma and dear little Anson, and 
papa and all? How I should like to see you 
all. We have got a dear little baby named 
Kichard, and a little girl named May Dana, 
here, and their mother, and the baby was born 
1 To Nanny Hoxie. 



18 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1859 

in Utah, and rode all the way from the Eocky 
Mountains to Massachusetts in an ambulance 
across the plains when he was five months old, 
in August. One night there was a dreadful 
storm (they had to make a tent-house for them- 
selves every night), and the rain and wind were 
so frightful they tore down the tent-house, and 
drenched all their clothes, and all their beds, 
and everything they had, and then they were 
exposed to the merciless storm till morning, not 
a dry rag to jDut on, or a dry place to put baby, 
and the big hailstones beating them till he cried 
with the pain of them. Wasn't that cruel? 
Think of little Anson exposed to such a dread- 
ful storm ! But it was beautiful, pleasant days 
traveling, for all the ground was covered with 
such lovely flowers, verbenas, petunias, gladi- 
olus, mats of crimson and scarlet portulaca, and 
all sorts of lovely garden flowers growing wild, 
and wonderful kinds of cactus, etc. But poor 
little Eichard and May like wooden houses bet- 
ter than tents, and living here with their little 
cousins better than being rattled along by the 
trains of mules and troops of men day after day, 
through the sunshine and rain. Kiss dear baby 
for me, and darling precious mamma, and give 
my love to Mamey and Gamma and papa and the 



1861] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 19 

boys, and do write to me, Kan darling, and send 
me the seeds if you can. 

Ever affectionately your little Auntie 

Celia. 

I^ have been overrun with things and people, 
no end of people, who seem to think this 
nook of Newtonville particularly delightful; 
but you Curzon people know what it is to have 
a river and a boat and live in the country, and 
though we don't pretend to the attractions and 
allurements which the Mills possess, still we 
have enough to attract quite a swarm of sum- 
mer flies! I beg their pardon, I 'm very fond 
of them all, but I realize more and more, the 
longer I live, what a good thing it is to have a 
little time to one's self, if only for the purpose 
of writing to one's friends. And how are you, 
dear Lizzy 1 I wish I could know ; you were 
sick, Margie told me, and I was so sorry to hear 
it, — but that was months ago. I hope you 
are well now and feel strong, but alas for the 
strength of feminine humanity such days as 
these! Such heat! Good heavens, you can 
boil eggs and roast chickens anywhere in this 
house, any time in the day. I told Marie yes- 
terday that it was absurdly superfluous putting 
1 To E. C. Hoxie. Newton, July 10, 1861. 



20 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1861 

her fiatirons on the range; she need only set 
them on the window-sill and she 'd be able to 
iron her starched clothes with them in the space 
of five minutes. To think of coming from the 
island in such weather ! where I wore the thick- 
est Valencia, a perfect horse-blanket of a gown, 
all the time! Can't wear anything here; have 
to exist without clothes, and it 's hard enough 
keeping body and soul together at that. I had 
such a good time at the island, and when I 
came home Levi met me in Boston and tri- 
umphantly informed me I could go home by 
land or water, as he had rowed in from New- 
tonville with George Folsom, and Karl and John, 
and Henry Weiss. Well, I had started from 
the island between four and five o'clock and 
floated on the unruffled bosom of the broad 
Atlantic until between nine and ten, with Lony 
asleep on my knees, and felt as if I had had 
quite enough water for one day ; but I perceived 
my spouse would particularly like to have me 
be rowed home, so I embarked at Cambridge 
bridge, a cushion behind me, an umbrella 
(Sairey Gamp's own) over me, a box of straw- 
berries in my lap, and four admiring masculine 
bipeds opposite me. I don't include Lony; he 
had been to the island with me and only "set 
store by me " in a general way. Had I not 



1861] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 21 

been such a travel-stained Cleopatra, and so 
tired and hot, I should have had a sparkling 
and vivacious time; but I had a very lovely if 
not a high time, and enjoyed it thoroughly. 
We got home a little after sunset, George and 
Levi rowing by turns, and stopped on the way 
to leave a basket of fish at the Robbins's, who 
live conveniently on the bank of the river. 
We had on board two baskets which accompa- 
nied me from the island as baggage, — champagne 
baskets, — containing heaps of beautiful loaves 
of bread, and six big lumps of fresh butter, a 
great huge plank of sponge cake and a huge 
loaf of plum, a great many corned mackerel, 
splendid salt fish, and two lovely, indeed I 
may say, heavenly, jars of fresh potted lobster. 
So we feasted. To be sure the corned mackerel 
weren't of much use in their raw state, but 
the gentlemen "let in" to the other edibles in 
a way that did credit to their appetites ; at least 
Levi did. George isn't in the habit of eating, 
I believe, anything. 

At present we subsist principally on ice 
cream, Levi having invested in a freezer which 
really and truly freezes in five minutes, and 
will freeze in four, a small quantity. And to 
tell you the truth, the reason I am writing to 
you to-night is because I am afraid to go to bed 



22 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1861 

after a big plateful (flavored with strawberries 
freshly mashed up in it and sherry wine, a jolly 
mixture I assure you!). We have been out on 
the river till nearly ten, rowing Mr. and Mrs. Ed- 
ward Bangs, and there was moonlight and star- 
light and firefly light and lightning, and it was 
lovely on the water, and Mrs. Bangs is such a 
raving beauty that one can't look at her enough. 

Thursday evening. Of all the nasty-looking 
letters I ever did write I think this is the 
worst! But it 's all on account of a new india- 
rubber pen, which is in such a hurry to write 
that it lets the ink all down in a lump, all of 
a sudden; but I needn't tell you that, for you 
know what exquisitely neat letters I 'm in the 
habit of writing to my friends, from experience. 
Seriously, I think Aspasia would consider me 
beneath her notice, because she says a woman 
isn't worth sixpence who doesn't make her 
letters exquisite, doesn't take pains to have 
her handwriting neat. 

Do Bob and Ned drill ? Karl and John do 
nothing but fight ; they live on it all the time ; 
it 's their bread and meat and drink. I suppose 
it's a natural instinct — to prepare them for the 
war. They roared in chorus, all three, under the 
windows at supper- time to-night, and on going 
out I found Karl and Roland (K. aged nine, R. 



1861] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 23 

aged three) beating each other with barrel staves. 
Highly agreeable and salutary performance, but 
disagreeably noisy with " company '^ on hand. 
We find an early note written to her pub- 
lisher, Mr. Fields, at about this period, — the 
first hint of her literary life : — 
I thank you ^ very much for the kind things you 
have said about my little poem, and am grateful 
for the trouble you took in looking it over and 
making suggestions. I am sorry I could not act 
upon them all. I am not good at making alter- 
ations. The only merit of my small produc- 
tions lies in their straightforward simplicity, 
and when that bloom is rubbed off by the effort 
to better them, they lose what little good they 
originally possessed. 

I 'm afraid you will not think the unconscious 
quotation from the ''Ancient Mariner" remedied 
by the mere transposition of words, but I cannot 
alter it satisfactorily and say what I wish. If 
the first and fifth verses do not seem to you too 
objectionable, pray let them pass. 

I 'm sorry its name is not so felicitous as 
"Land-Locked," which Mr. Lowell christened. 
Pray pardon me for trespassing on your valu- 
able time, and believe me 

Gratefully yours, C. Thaxter. 
1 To James T. Fields. Newtonville, September 23, 1861. 



24 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1862 

Thanks for your ^ note. I am just as sorry as 
I can be, that you can't come. ''April, 1863 " ? 
Why, by that time, every man, woman, and 
child will be drained out of the veins of the 
nation and lost in the war ! Do you expect to 
be alive in April, 1863? I don't. Very faintly 
the spent wave of terrible news reached us here 
in this remote nook, till yesterday. A note 
from Mr. Weiss brought it all horribly in sight. 
What carnage, what endless suffering! It is 
so hard to realize, when the delicious days go 
by, one after one, so still and full of peace. I 
never saw more perfect days, full of all love- 
liness; the islands never seemed so charming 
before ! 

I think you are entirely right about my 
rhymes. I should hardly have sent them, but 
you had surprised me by liking other things, 
and it seemed possible you might these. I 
believe, I am afraid, I never can put my heart 
into anything that does n't belong to the sea. 

We were sorry you^ could not come on Satur- 
day. It was just the sort of day for an expe- 
dition, — cool and clear. Mr. Thaxter and Mr. 
Folsom took a boat above the Upper Falls and 

1 To James T. Fields. Appledore, September 4, 1862. 

2 To Annie Fields. Newtonville. 



1862] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 25 

were gone till sunset, and I took Miss Mary 
Folsom and rowed to Waltham. We contrived 
to spend two long hours deliciously among the 
lily pads and spikes of purple pickerel-weed, 
explored a brook and loaded our boat with 
flowers; had altogether a charming time. 

So let us have next Saturday if it is possible, 
will you not? Let us know if there is any 
hope of your coming, — perhaps Mr. Weiss may 
be able to come too. We have had such a 
sparkling and enchanting Sunday ! He preached 
like one possessed, with a spirit of good, and 
uttered aloud the awful word Slavery, and the 
people were still as death. The church was full 
to overflowing. 

The carryall would hardly hold the heaps of 
flowers; the scarlet poppies waved out of the 
windows; the sweet peas fell to the floor for 
want of hands and laps to hold them! Ah, 
these are splendid days! 

The^ leaves are falling, falling, dry and sere 
after the sudden frost, and it looks pinched and 
cold out of doors, and the wind whistles, and 
we cluster about the fire at nightfall and tell 
stories to the children as if it were midwinter. 
I cannot tell you how I dread the cold ! Were 
1 To Annie Fields. October 23, 1862. 



26 LETTERS OF CELT A THAXTER [1862 

I but a stork or a swallow ! To have the fields 
locked up hard and fast, and the snow, blank, 
stark, stiff, glaring, spread over all, months 
and months! It takes all my philosophy to 
stand it and keep my equilibrium. I long for 
the light and life, and ever shifting color, and 
ever delicious sound of the faithful old sea more 
in the winter than in the summer. No frost or 
snow can extinguish it. 

My Dear Friend: ^ — I 'm sorry I 've as yet 
no prosaic manuscripts for you, but I pray you 
patience for a little longer. Meanwhile here 
are some verses which have been evolved 
among the pots and kettles, to which you 're 
welcome, if they 're good enough for you. 
Verses can grow when prose can't, 

" While greasy Joan doth keel the pot " ! 
The rhymes in my head are all that keep me 
alive, I do believe, lifting me in a half uncon- 
scious condition over the ashes heap, so that I 
don't half realize how dry and dusty it is! I 
have had no servant at all for a whole week, 
by a combination of hideous circumstances. I 
wish you 'd tell A. that I have had infinite sat- 
isfaction and refreshment out of her tickets al- 
ready, and forget all weariness and perplexity 
1 To James T. Fields. Newtonville, October 25. 



1863] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 27 

on the crest of a breaker of earthly bliss while 
Emerson discourses. 



So you^ were one of the "Tenters," as the 
Star Islanders call the dwellers in canvas 
houses. And Bayard Taylor? And who was 
the fair neighboring lady ? and was there really 
one? And was it Annie? What a pleasant 
time it must have been ! How I wish I could 
have peeped at you from without, and heard 
the voice that read! But I share with the 
world the next best thing, "the Tent in type," 
and am duly grateful. 

Thanks, also, for your note of acceptance. 
Here is the snow again, just as we were fairly 
rid of the ice-packs ! It was so blissful to see 
the color of the brown fields and pastures, like 
a tawny lion's skin spread down, and now they 
are all stark, white, motionless, mute, dead, in 
their shroud again. I hate the snow with a 
delightful fervor; it just means death to me, 
and nothing more or less. I sympathize with 
the cats and hens, who step across it, lifting up 
their feet with intense discomfort and disappro- 
bation, and never walk on it if I can help it. 
But it won't last long. 

1 To James T. Fields. Newtonville, February 20. 



28 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1865 

Wheii"^ the snow blows here we are as much 
cut off from humanity as if we lived in an ice- 
berg, afloat in the Polar seas. Never mind, 
stout hearts and firm wills conquer anything 
in this world, and as you say, we don't need 
soft skies to make friendship a joy to us. 
What a heavenly thing it is; "world without 
end," truly. I grow warm thinking of it, and 
should glow at the thought if all the glaciers of 
the Alps were heaped over me ! Such friends 
God has given me in this little life of mine ! 

Are n't you ^ glad to begin to perceive a pros- 
pect of spring? it must be so splendid with 
you. The chicks have brought in the most 
splendid blossoming maple boughs, smelling 
like honey, and cowslips and willow blossoms 
and alder catkins and so on, but we 've found no 
bloodroot or hepaticas yet. You have the May- 
flower growing near you, haven't you? How 
I should like to gather it! Eoland reverently 
gathered a skunk cabbage flower and carried up 
to school in West Newton, to the teacher of 
botany in whose class he was a pupil, and she 
hove it out of the window with speed, said she 
never saw it before and never wished to see it 

1 To Annie Fields. Ne-wtonville. 

2 To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, April 24. 



1867] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 29 

again, never even heard of it and didn't want 
to! There 's wisdom for you! As if it didn't 
have its place in creation and. was n't curious 
and interesting in spite of its smell ! Imagine 
Levi's extreme disgust! A scholar who brought 
two dabby azalea blossoms from a greenhouse 
was welcomed with smiles. Such is life. I 
tied bones to the trees this winter in humble 
imitation of you, and the birds came round in 
flocks, to my intense satisfaction. The boys 
and Levi have guns and go murdering round 
the country in the name of science till my heart 
is broken into shreds. They are horribly 
learned, but that doesn't compensate for one 
little life destroyed, in my woman's way of 
viewing it. 

Dear Friend : ^ — I have copied my ballad for 
your dissecting knife, very hastily, but I hope 
it is legible. 

Please say to A., with much love, that we 
had a most charming time last night. It was a 
real delight to see Mr. Dickens and to have 
one's ideal of an individual so completely real- 
ized. 

1 To James T. Fields. Boston, Monday Morning, Janu- 
ary 6, 1867. 



30 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1868 

This morning^ the fishing boats, flying out 
wing-and-wing before the north wind, brought 
a mail, and again I am grateful to hear that all 
are well at home. This afternoon Cedric took 
a schooner and bounded away over the long 
waves to Portsmouth, the wind being north- 
east, so we hope for another mail to-morrow. 
This day the weather has relented, and over our 
bleak loneliness a softer sky has stooped, with 
loosely blown light clouds almost summerlike. 
To-night at sunset it was dead calm and we 
climbed the hill and sat by the smaller cairn 
with all the loveliness spread out before us; a 
soft crimson sunset intensely vivid over the 
dark coast and the whole sea reflecting it, in 
rosy streaks near, and afar off a long red trail 
in the water. The tide brimmed every cove; 
a little ice-bird swam in, shook himself; and 
landed on a point close by for his supper of 
blue mussels, diving down and coming up again 
with so much life and vigor that it was enter- 
taining to watch him. When we came down 
by Babb's Cove the water came in in such a 
beautiful curve that I was enchanted. First 
the line was marked in snow, then a few feet 
below it was drawn accurately in black sea- 

1 To John G. Whittier. The Shoals, Sunday, February 
16, 1868. 



1868] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 31 

weed, then below that came the living water 
itself, the "wan water," the melodious water! 

Oscar and I have just been leaning out of 
the window watching the planet Venus, bright 
as a young moon, throwing "into the ocean 
faint and far" "the trail of its golden splen- 
dor," and listening to the rote which bodes a 
storm, though the water is like glass. This 
sound we knew came from the bight of Little 
Island, as we tried to disentangle the separate 
sounds wound into one hollow roar; that from 
Cannon Point, where now and then a sleepy- 
breaker rolled; but the body of sound came 
from the east and just like a great shell held 
to your ear it seemed. It does have the most 
wonderful effect on the human imagination ; long 
before I read "The Lotos Eaters," listening to 
it I felt as if all things were dreams and shad- 
ows. It makes one careless of life; it lulls 
alike all joy and pain; it dulls our senses till 
we are ready to cry indeed, "there is no joy 
but calm " ! The northeast wind has swept out 
of the upper cove the thick crust of ice, and 
left it clear. Dear friend, you would hardly 
know the place! This long piazza, up and 
down which Youth and Eomance were wont to 
meander through the summer evenings, is filled 
with snow from one end to the other and trav- 



32 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1868 

ersed occasionally by the cows and sheep; the 
little garden which kept me in roses so long 
last summer, and whose golden and flame-col- 
ored flowers seemed trying to outblaze the sun, 
is but a heap of snow and desolation. How 
the poppies nodded their scarlet heads between 
the rails, and how sweet was the perfume from 
the mignonette, and how good you were to let 
me put flowers in your buttonhole! Dear me, 
what a crowd of reminiscences! Now, in front 
of the house, the poor Pilgrim (the largest 
yacht, which went ashore last fall and nearly 
stove to pieces) is hauled up for repairs, and to 
shelter her against the weather is draped with 
a melancholy gray old sail, a ragged piece of 
canvas that flaps in every breeze; not a boat on 
the moorings where the tiny fleet tossed like 
eggshells; and the landing where so many ten- 
der greetings passed is torn plank from plank 
and flung to the right and the left with a ven- 
geance! Every year it is torn away and has 
to be rebuilt. 

Tuesday, 18th. The storm has come and 
gone and left us powdered with fresh snow, 
but otherwise none the worse for it. I have 
sewed so steadily on gowns and caps and femi- 
nine paraphernalia that I richly deserved the 
fit of neuralgia in my head and eyes that made 



1868] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 33 

me lose a whole day. I wish I were n't in the 
habit of going at everything with such a fury ! 
I had a dear, long, lovely letter from Lucy 
Larcom, I do think she is a heavenly body! 
a true woman. 

It is quite moderate to-day, lovely vanishing 
greens and blues and violets in among the toss- 
ing waves; a kinder sky, clear blue and soft. 
We hung the parrot out at the door and she 
imitated the whole flock of sheep and the cows 
and ducks and hens gathered within her ken, 
and ordered the horse about imperatively. She 
likes to be out in the sun, but when she grew 
tired she called me, "Celia! Celia! " till we took 
her in. Then she said " God love that girl ! " 
as she hears Oscar say. She is too weird for 
this world! How you must miss Charlie! 
This bird is worth half a dozen people for en- 
tertainment. She flew away, while mother was 
gone last autumn, over to Star, and the island- 
ers, taking her for a hawk, were about to shoot 
her, when she called loud and clear, " Cedric ! *' 
and just saved herself. I really think she was 
glad to see me. I 'm sure I was glad to see 
her! 

February is vanishing fast. How soon the 
alders and willows will blossom ! Do you know 
the thermometer hasn't been below zero here 



34 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1868 

once this winter? But oh, the blustering and 
incorrigible winds! the storms, the snow, the 
blackness and bleakness of things ! 

This morning we woke to a dreary sifting of 
snow, but it cleared off early and the ragged 
scud went flying east, leaving a stainless blue 
clean swept by the southwest wind. Whiter 
than snow the coasters have crossed and re- 
crossed our little space of heaven-colored sea to 
the east the whole day long. At noon there 
came a knock at the door, which I opened, and 
behold a fossil ! a mummy ! in other words an 
ancient Star Islander carrying a pail to get 
some milk for some sick woman. Anything so 
grizzled and overgrown with the moss of ages I 
never beheld! I placed a chair for him and 
mother said, "Do you know who it is?" 
"Ya'as," he said, "I know Mr. Thaxter's 
wife," but I didn't know him. They call him 
"Shothead," but his real name is Eandall, as 
everybody's is who is n't Caswell. (Well, that 
is a wonderful sentence!) What the original 
color of the creature was we could not guess. 
I fancy he never fell overboard or was caught 
in a shower, and any other application of water 
I doubt if he ever tried. But he had a sweet 
expression in his old blue eyes, a kind of child- 
ish look, as he retailed the news from Star. I 



1868] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 35 

asked him how they got on with Mr, Blank, 
the minister. He laughed a laugh of scorn. 
" Blank !^^ said he, "he ain't no good to no- 
body, no Doctor, no minister, no schoolmaster 
nuther. He took the five hundred dollars he 
got from the gentlemen over here last summer 
to repair the meeting-house, and has been up to 
Concord a spending on 't all winter ! " It seems 
that he put in two windows for the "meeting- 
house" and that's all. I'm rather glad he 
did n't pull the old house to pieces, for the beams 
in it were rescued from the wreck of a Spanish 
ship as long ago as the oldest inhabitant can re- 
member. The husband of the sick woman, who 
borrowed the Lone Star to go for the doctor, 
came over, — a stalwart fellow in the prime of 
life, thickset, well-made, with most beautiful 
large clear hazel eyes, a Nova Scotian, settled 
many a year at Star. He was so grateful for 
the boat! He brought over a whole dory load 
of fresh fish. 

I had a splendid mail to-day, five letters, 
some very unexpected epistles, but I did not 
hear from you, therefore I was a little bit dis- 
appointed, being a woman and necessarily un- 
reasonable. My spouse writes, "Katy [that 
is our Hibernian] does bravely " and " I shall 
not expect you yet." Isn't he good? Mother 



36 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1868 

says, "A few days longer; you know you'll 
never have another mother and I shall not be 
here long," so I linger and linger, but must 
soon go, some time next week. I wish I 
were n't going to set foot off the island till next 
December! L. says he went to a ball unto 
which we were invited after I came away, the 
most prodigious affair of the kind ever given in 
Boston; the flowers alone cost fifteen hundred 
dollars, with Crete crying out to us, and the 
freedmen suffering, and the poor children in the 
streets of Boston barefoot and squalid! 

Thursday morning, A really beautiful day; 
the coast has really got its feet in the water at 
last! Po Hill is no longer hanging between 
heaven and earth, like Mahomet's coffin, but 
has settled down like a decorous hill, behind 
Boar's Head, which stands out like a fort of 
snow in the morning light. Everything smiles 
and dances and sings for joy, and oh, to be a 
great gull floating aloft in the pure air! 

You know, my dear Anson, ^ how much hasty- 
pudding must be made in a family of growing 
boys, and how many vile old trousers and shirts 
and duds have to be darned in more senses than 
one, by the mother of a family. So I hope 
1 To Anson Hoxie. Newtonville, June 17, 1868. 



1868] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 37 

you '11 be charitable, for I 've been loving you 
just as much all the time as if I had written 
a volume. Well, how do you do, this beautiful 
weather, you dear thing? Isn't it beautiful to 
have real hot summer days at last? How are 
all the gold robins and sparrows and catbirds 
and chickadees and woodpeckers and bluebirds 
and blackbirds and kingbirds and humming- 
birds and things ? Has the gold robin hatched 
her brood ? Did she take the black horsehair, 
after all? Don't you think, we had a wind that 
was like the hurricane of the desert, the other 
day, hot and strong and long. A little chip- 
ping-sparrow had built her dainty nest in the 
cherry-tree outside my western chamber win- 
dow, within reach of my hand, and as I sat 
there sewing I could watch her going and com- 
ing, and it was more lovely than tongue can 
tell. Well, this preposterous gale blew and 
blew and blew till the cows came home, and 
blew all night besides, as if its only earthly 
aim and object was to destroy every living 
thing in its way. It blew the dear little nest 
with its pretty blue eggs clean away out of 
sight; we found the remains in the hedge next 
day. And a dear purple finch's nest and eggs 
shared the same fate; the finches had built in 
a little cedar by the fence. I was so sorry! 



38 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1868 

Lots of nests were blown away all about. I 
hope gold robin held fast to the elm-tree down 
at Gammer's, if that senseless wind went roar- 
ing and raving down to Newburyport, as I sup- 
pose it did. Did the yellow bird build in the 
currant bushes? I'm so anxious to know! 
When I went over to Amesbury that day I left 
you,* a ruby- throated humming-bird was flutter- 
ing among Mr. Whittier's pear-trees all day. 
I wondered if he were the same one you and 
mamma and I watched that heavenly afternoon 
before, when we sat by the pleasant open win- 
dow with the dafifys underneath and the birds 
going and coming. Oh, I must tell you, that 
the chip-sparrow whose nest blew away built 
again in an elm-tree the other side of the house. 
Mr. Thaxter and Lony have been gone three 
days, and I milk the cow and she is tied to an 
apple-tree, and what do you think she does? 
She 's as frisky as a kitten, so all the time I 'm 
milking she goes round and round the tree and 
I after her, and it 's a spectacle enough to kill 
the cats, it 's so ridiculous. I suppose Margie 
is at the Mills by this time, and what good times 
you must have with the children! I gave 
lovely "little black Gammer" to Margie to 
carry back to your dearest of dear mammas. I 
hope she got it safely. Please tell her how 



1869] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 39 

much obliged to her I am. Tell her I 've just 
got through wrestling with the dragon of house- 
cleaning and have succeeded in felling him to 
the earth, whereat my soul rejoices with an ex- 
ceeding great joy. You can also inform her pri- 
vately that I love her to distraction. 

Did you get two magazines I sent you? 
Lony was much pleased with his marble and 
his bluebirds, which you sent, and thanks you 
much. 

Did you ^ know Karl and I are moored here for 
seven months? Such is the remarkable fact, 
and Levi, Lony, and John are gone down to 
Jacksonville, or rather to the state of Florida 
generally and promiscuously, with powder and 
shot by the ton, and arsenic and plaster ditto, 
and camp-kettle and frying-pan and coffee-pot 
and provisions and rubber blankets and a tent, 
and a, boat, and three guns, and a darkey to 
be obtained upon arriving at Jacksonville, and 
heaven only knows what besides. They are to 
steam down to Enterprise and then take their 
boat on to the lakes at the end of the St. 
John's Eiver, and then row back in their boat, 
shooting all the crocodiles, parrakeets, mocking- 
birds, herons, flamingoes, white ibises and 
* To E. C. Hoxie. Appledore, March 7, 1869. 



40 LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER [1809 

every other creature, feathered or otherwise, 
that chances to fall in their way, until they 
stop in St. Augustine, and then return (going 
to see Bob on their way, if possible) sometime 
in May and stop here for a while to examine the 
windfall of birds killed by the lighthouse in 
the spring, and then they are to pursue their 
way up north, to Nova Scotia or the coast of 
Labrador, still to pursue the unwary sea fowl 
and cure the skin thereof and bring it as a trib- 
ute to the feet of Science! Meanwhile Karl 
and I remain here, moored for seven months. 
Our house is let and we 're houseless and home- 
less. When the Mayflower is in blossom I 
purpose skimming across the water and seeking 
you on one side and friend Whittier on the 
other side of the broad and meandering Merri- 
mac, and making a flying call on you both. 
You might think I should have plenty of time, 
but you don't know how busy I am obliged to 
be, and as for pen and ink I. 'm free to confess 
I hate the sight of it. Living on a desolate 
island is the busiest life ! And as for the piles 
of sewing I Ve got to do for myself, and the 
caps and gowns I 've got to make up for my 
mammy and the linen for house, it 's enough to 
make the spirit of mortal quail before it. 



1869] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 41 

1 1 saw the tiger when William Hunt first 
sketched it, pinned up against the parlor wall, 
which was like a wondrous scrapbook, full of 
graceful and powerful bits of drawing and all 
sorts of odds and ends that nobody else would 
think of perpetuating. You saw the cactus 
flowers? He showed me the thick charcoal 
stump with which he drew these marvelous 
white blooms, so fresh, crisp, delicate, so liv- 
ing! Ah, he has the immortal spark if ever 
mortal had it ! I never saw anything like the 
pathos he puts into human faces, — anything on 
canvas, I mean. 

I've thought of you tossing on the "wind- 
obeying deep '' this last fortnight, and of 

as profoundly miserable. I remember how he 
shuddered at the thought of the sea. You must 
have arrived by this. Well! Does 

" The chaffinch sing on the orchard bough 
In England now" ? 

and do you hear the wise thrush that sings 
each song twice over 

" Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture " ? 

If you don't hear the thrush perhaps you '11 
see the man who wrote about him, which will 

1 To Annie Fields. Appledore, Isles of Shoals, May 4, 
1869. 



42 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1869 

perhaps be better. That is another man with 
all his wits about him, "duly alive and aware." 
"What vitality in all his words, what splendid 
power! After all, there is no one quite so sat- 
isfying to the human mind, and no one ever 
wearies of his worthiest speech any more than 
of Shakespeare's. . . . 

Miss Shepard, who has lived in Salem all 
her days and knows the Hawthorne people 
well, says it was Mall Street and not Oliver in 
which he wrote the "Scarlet Letter." It seems 
the poem Hawthorne liked best, among all the 
shorter pieces of modern writers was "The 
Grave," written by the authoress of "Paul Fer- 
roll." Do you know the poem? Miss Shep- 
ard has sent to Miss Hawthorne to obtain it 
for me, and if you have n't it, if Miss H. (who 
is an uncertain and eccentric body) sends it to 
me, I will gladly give it to you. He thought 
it the most powerful thing in modern poetry. 
I never heard of it. 

I wonder if you ^ care to know how the great 
Beethoven looked! Even if you don't, I think 
the picture is interesting as a fine type of 
humanity, and I crave permission to add it to 
your collection of photographs. How strange 
1 To John G. Whittier. 



1870] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 43 

it is that the greatest musician the world has 
ever seen should have been deaf to his own 
marvelous work and shut out from all sounds! 
Doesn't he look like a splendid old German 
lion, with a northeast hurricane in his hair ! I 
have n't words to tell you how I admire him 
and his uplifting music. 

I had such a happy time at Amesbury ! And 
I thank you with all my heart. 

Your ^ letter came this morning and I can't tell 
you how sad it made me. I wish I knew what 
could be done, wish we had some plan of our 
own, wish we could join forces and do some- 
thing, and Levi does so most heartily; but we 
have no plans even for the next weeks just 
ahead, only that he must get away as quickly 
as he can. I don't see but we have got to 
become a kind of human shuttlecocks and bat- 
tledores, for Levi must go south in the winter 
and fly north in the summer, from rheumatism 
in winter and from fever and ague in summer. 
He has been slowly gaining strength, but is far 
from well, and this morning began with an- 
other threatening of rheumatism which troubles 
me and makes me feel very anxious to have 
1 To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, January 24, 1870. 



44 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1870 

him off. He and Lony are to go together, 
they don't know where, perhaps St. Augustine. 
Did I tell you John is to live with the Eolsoms 
in Dedham, and Karl and I go to the island at 
present at least? Levi means to come home 
in May, or just as soon as it is warm enough. 
Then heaven knows where he will go or what 
we shall do, but something will have to be 
arranged for next winter. "Come home" I 
say, — there won't be any more home, which 
makes me feel forlorn. 

What a charming letter is this of yours * about 
Mrs. Gold Eobin and the blazing Pyrus full of 
humming-birds! How glad I am Anson likes 
his magazine, dear, charming little fellow that 
he is ! If I live to be ten thousand years old I 
never shall forget his sudden appearance before 
me as I sat in the cars, bound for Amesbury; 
the fascination of his half shy, half uncertain 
attitude, his little slender figure, his bright 
head and enchanting smile. He is among the 
sweetest of the children that I know, and I am 
glad to remind him pleasantly of me. 

While you were writing last Sunday what a 
lovely day it was, to be sure ! I was scribbling 
by this heavenly western window, for the sound 
1 To E. C. Hoxie.. Appledore, May 19, 1870. 



1873] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 45 

of the ebbing tide was too delicious. I think 
George Curtis 's lines are most lovely. Down 
they go into my extract book ! Thank you for 
sending them. 

We ^ have been here a week, Karl and I, but 
such things have happened I feel as if it were 
years. You know, I suppose, from the news- 
papers, of the horrid murder at Smutty-nose. 
Those dear, lovely Norwegian people had a set- 
tlement over there; there was John Hontvet 
and his wife Marie, and Karen Christiansen, 
Marie's sister, and Ivan Christiansen her bro- 
ther, and Anethe his wife; the two had been 
married but a year and only came from Norway 
last fall. Anethe, everybody says, was a regu- 
lar fair beauty, young and strong, with splen- 
did thick yellow hair, so long she could sit on 
it. Both husbands, John and Ivan, were de- 
votedly fond of their wives, and their little 
home was so bright and happy 'and neat and 
delightful they never ceased congratulating 
themselves upon having found such a place to 
live in. Louis Wagner, the Prussian devil 
who murdefed them, had lived with them all 
summer, but was in Portsmouth working at 
nothing in particular for the last month (those 
1 To Elizabeth D. Pierce. Shoals, March 11, 1873. 



46 LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER [1873 

three women had been heavenly good to him, 
nursed him in sickness, and supposed him to be 
a friend). The two husbands went to Ports- 
mouth Tuesday to sell their fish, leaving the 
three women, as they often had done before, 
alone, as we on this island have often been. 
In Portsmouth they found Louis and asked 
him to come baiting trawls with them. He pre- 
tended assent, but knowing the three women 
had been left alone and thinking Karen, who 
had just left mother's service, had money with 
her, he took a dory and rowed twelve miles out 
here in the calm night lit by a young moon, 
landed on Smutty a little after midnight, broke 
into the house in the dark and hacked and 
hewed those poor women till he killed two of 
them by sheer force of blows, chopping off 
Anethe's ear and smashing her skull. She had 
twenty wounds where he had blundered at her 
haphazard, in the dark! Marie told me all 
about it. She heard him first at Karen, rushed 
to see what was the matter, got three blows 
herself and a bruise on the jaw from a chair he 
flung at her when she fled, fastening the door 
behind her, into Anethe's room. She shook 
and roused the poor girl out of the deep heavy 
sleep of youth, and throwing some clothes over 
her, made her get out of the window, Louis 



1873] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 47 

thundering at the door all the time to get in. 
In vain Marie cried "Run, run, Anethe, for 
your life ! " Utterly bewildered and dazed, poor 
little Anethe cried, "I cannot move one step," 
and with that Louis came rushing out of the 
house round the corner, and Marie saw him kill 
Anethe with many blows, felling her to the 
earth. She rushed back to Karen and tried to 
pull her out of the house, begging her to come 
and save herself, but poor Karen, half dead 
with blows, cried only "I too tired," and Louis 
coming back Marie leaped from the other win- 
dow and ran for her life. He struck at her 
with the axe as she leaped and drove it deep 
into the window ledge. Having to finish 
Karen, he delayed long enough for poor Marie 
to get off among the rocks. The little dog, 
Ringa, was barking wildly all the time. He 
followed Marie and was really the means of 
saving her life, for but for him she would have 
crept under one of the old fish-houses to hide, 
but she knew his barking would betray her. 
Next day the devil's bloody footsteps were 
found all round the old buildings where he had 
searched for her everywhere. Barefooted, in 
her nightgown, over the snow and ice and 
rough rocks she fled with the little Ringa, 
down on the uttermost end of the island, crept 



48 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1873 

into a hole and hid. The moon was just setting 
as she went; and there she stayed till morning, 
and dared not move till the sun was high, hug- 
ging Einga to keep herself alive. Louis mean- 
while finished Karen by strangling her, sought 
Marie in vain, took his boat and rowed to Ports- 
mouth again, arrived there in the first sweet 
tranquil blush of dawn, a creature accursed, a 
blot on the face of the day. A heavenly day 
it was, calm, blue, and fair; poor Marie with 
her torn tender feet crawled round to Malaga 
opposite Ingebertsen's house, and signaled and 
screamed till at last they saw her, and what 
was good old Ingebertsen's astonishment when 
he went for her, to see her in her nightdress, 
all bruised and bloodstained, with her feet all 
bleeding and frozen. "Who has done it?" he 
kept asking and she only could answer at last,- 
"Louis, Louis, Louis." I went over to see her 
at his house (on our island, you know). She 
clasped my hands, crying: "Oh, I so glad to 
see you ! Oh, I so glad I saved my life ! " 
Poor thing, she tried hard to save the others. 
The two husbands arrived just after Marie had 
been taken to Ingebertsen's. When they went 
into their house and saw that unspeakable sight 
they came reeling out and fell flat down in the 
snow. A watch had to be set over Ivan lest 



1873] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 49 

he should destroy himself. Anethe, his pre- 
cious little wife, was so lovely. Oscar was so 
impressed with her beauty. We begged her to 
come over as often as she could, it was such a 
pleasure to look at her! 

You can't imagine how shocked and solem- 
nized we have all been. Oscar walks up and 
down, now ejaculating, "Oh poor, poor things, 
and Anethe so beautiful, so beautiful ! " Karen 
was quite one of the family here; it was she of 
whom I wrote the little spinning ballad, you 
know. Now I 'm afraid these dear people will 
all be frightened away from here and no more 
will come. 

Wednesday, March 12. To-day, dear, I got 
your sweet little note. Ever so many thanks 
for it. Lots of newspapers came with such dis- 
tracted accounts of the murder that it is enough 
to make anybody sick. As if a Star Islander 
did it ! If they do not hang that wretch, law is 
a mockery. 

Perhaps you ^ don't know that I am a fixture 
here for the winter. My mother has been so 
poorly I could not leave her, and she would not 
leave my brothers, so I must leave my family 
to take care of themselves, and stay with her, 
1 To Feroline W. Fox. Shoals, November 13, 1873. 



50 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1873 

for our family is so destitute of women it is 
really forlorn! No sisters, daughters, aunts, 
cousins, nothing but a howling wilderness of 
men! So it all comes on my shoulders. I 
would fain unite the duties of existence and 
have my mother at home with me, but alas, 
fate has arranged it otherwise, and here we are 
imprisoned as completely as if we were in the 
Bastille, a mail perhaps once in a fortnight, 
and the demoniacal northwest wind mounting 
guard over us day and night, and howling like 
ten thousand raving fiends. My feeling of 
personal spite against the northwest is some- 
thing vindictive and venomous in the extreme. 
I 'd like to blot it off the compass. The only 
thing I can do is to turn my back on it and try 
to forget it; try to forget there is such a place 
as out of doors at all, for the weather is some- 
thing incredible, and will be from this time to 
next May. You never would know the place ! 
Such a senseless, blustering cave of the winds! 
I suppose if the far-off continent did not hold* 
so much that is precious for me, I should not 
get so vexed with the winds and waves that 
prevent me from hearing from my dear ones. 
I miss my boys so much I can't bear to think 
of it. As I said, you would not know the place 
now. All the boats are housed, not one on the 



1873] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 51 

moorings of all the pretty fleet, all the familiar 
tops down, the dike removed that kept the 
water in the basin of the upper cove, the float- 
ing wharf towed into that basin and fastened 
with chains, not a settee on the wind-swept 
chilly piazzas; the music-room piled sky high 
with sails and traps, the eagle descended from 
his perch on the housetop, even the vane taken 
down, everything double-reefed for the hurri- 
cane in store. It is truly "remote, unfriended," 
solitary, "slow," but nothing to what it will be 
when the snow makes a bitter shroud for us. 
There is n't a gracious color to be seen, except 
the flush of sunrise, and the faint sad rose tints 
and sadder violets of sunset, and if you have 
emerged into the outer air the gale cuffs your 
ears to that extent that you feel personally ag- 
grieved and disgusted. Twenty weeks of blus- 
ter between us and spring! But I wouldn't 
mind if we could only have a mail once a week. 
I keep very busy all the time. I wish you 
could see the room into which I took you to 
see my mother. I have taken the plants in 
hand, and really the desert blossoms like the 
rose ; ten windows full ; they are really splendid. 
A passion flower is running round the top at 
the rate of seven knots an hour, and I have 
roses, geraniums, clouds of pink oxalis, abuti- 



52 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1874 

Ion, and callas in bloom; every day I spend 
an hour over those ten windows. Polly, my 
parrot, hangs at one. I don't know what we 
should do without her. She is so funny ! She 
has learned my unfortunate laugh, and she 
keeps it up from morning till night, peal upon 
peal, and, no matter what may be the state of 
the family temper, we must join in it perforce; 
it is irresistible ! 

My dear friend, I cannot tell you how aiBfec- 
tionately I remember you and your beautiful 
sister. I wish you would remember me most 
kindly to her and to "Carrie " and to your hus- 
band. If I only were at home I should surely 
try to find my way to you all, and look in your 
dear faces again speedily. ... I fairly trem- 
ble when a bushel of letters are turned out of 
the mail-bag for me, and I am afraid to touch 
or look at what I am longing for so eagerly. 
Can't you understand how one must feel? 

Nobody ^ knows how precious a word of kind- 
ness is, coming across the bitter sea to this 
howling wilderness of desolation, one lives so 
much on "the weather" here; and when all out 
of doors turns your deadly enemy, it is hard 
to bear. Oh, what do you think! on the 25th 
1 To Feroline W. Fox. Appledorc, March 19, 1874. 



1874] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 53 

of February I saw our song sparrows! Yes, 
really ! I could hardly believe my eyes. I 
heard the cry of a bird and I listened, thinking 
it was the snow buntings, whose sad, sad cry 
often makes lonelier our loneliness, but it was 
repeated, and I said to myself, that cheerful 
chirp can belong to nothing but the dear brown 
bird I love; and I peered eagerly about till at 
last I saw him hopping contentedly among the 
snowbanks! I don't think I shall rejoice 
more if I ever chance to see the angel Gabriel's 
plumes of burning gold. I could scarcely be- 
lieve my eyes. I went round and round him, 
and watched him till the cold had nearly turned 
me into a frozen efhgy. I found his dear little 
tracks all about my little garden, where he had 
sought for any stray seeds that the weather 
might have spared. Thenceforth I went about 
strewing the ground with crumbs. The first of 
March a company of them were singing, and 
three robins beside, and yesterday, lo ! a blue- 
bird. What bliss! To-day we have been 
swathed in a warm fog, the snow falls off, the 
spring seems possible. I have been wandering 
on the beaches, — unless I spend just so much 
time out of doors, I get blue and ill, — and gath- 
ering Iceland moss for blanc-mange for the mil- 
lion, because I hate to be without a purpose. 



54 LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER [1874 

It takes Thoreau and Emerson and their kind 
to enjoy a walk for a walk's sake, and the 
wealth they glean with eyes and ears. I can- 
not enjoy the glimpses Nature gives me half as 
well, when I go deliberately seeking them, as 
when they flash on me in some pause of work. 
It is like -the pursuit of happiness: you don't 
get it when you go after it, but let it alone 
and it comes to you. At least this is my case. 
In the case of the geniuses (now is that the 
proper plural?) aforesaid, it is different. So I 
industriously filled my basket with the pretty, 
wet, transparent clusters lying all strewn about 
the beach; but I didn't fail to see how the 
dampness brought out the colors of stone and 
shell, and to be glad therefor; and I heard the 
living ripple of the swiftly rising tide among 
the ledges and boulders, and saw how it bub- 
bled and eddied up close to the shore, for the 
fog pressed in so close one could not see a rod 
across the calm surface. And I even paused 
long enough to address the flood as it rushed 
and sang almost round my feet. " everlast- 
ing, beautiful old eternal slop ! " I said, and the 
force of language could no farther go. And, 
my basket being full, I selected a formidable 
club from the heaps of driftwood strewing the 
beach, and went to the end of the outermost 



1874] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 55 

ledge and began beating off the thick, white 
shining girdle of salt-water ice that partially 
clasps each island yet. I loosened large pon- 
derous masses, that fell with a great splash 
into the sea and sailed off slowly to annihila- 
tion. "Go, go," I cried, "and never come 
back again ! I hate you ! " and I assailed it with 
wrath till I had beaten the rock quite free, and 
I was tired enough to be glad to sit down and 
watch the floating fetters I had cast loose as 
they swam heavily away. 

I send you two or three thoughts of God, 
out of the great, rough, fierce Atlantic, Who 
would think its bitter wrath and tumult could 
hide such delicate and tender fancies ! 

I ^ am full of sadness and of sympathy over this 
terrible disaster. Hardly can I think of any- 
thing else, and those two dear people haunt my 
little room, the sunny piazza, the little garden; 
I see and hear them everywhere. How gentle 
they were, how sweet and good and noble. How 
can we spare them, and fools and knaves are 
cumbering the earth! I have such a letter of 
sorrow from S. C, who grew so attached to 
them here: "That dear, splendid little doctor! 
To think of the cruelty of her tender body be- 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, May 20, 1874. 



56 LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER [l874 

ing beaten on the rocks ! " Ah, I wish the sea 
would stop its roar, so soft and far from rim to 
rim of this great horizon ! It makes me shud- 
der when I think of them and how it sounded 
in their ears ! How brave Mrs. Greene is, sure 
that all that is must be best! glad for them 
that they could go in the midst of the joy of 
life, with all their enthusiasm, spared all life's 
disappointments, safe from any suffering like 
hers! She is a marvel. Yes, dear, she sent 
me the little paper, writing my name on it and 
hers with her own hand. And I must write to 
her, but hardly dare to speak. 

I think I shall not see the mainland again 
till autumn, unless sickness summons me. It 
is heavenly beautiful here now, "so sweet with 
voices of the birds," so green and still and 
flower-strewn. Only I am too much alone, and 
get sadder than death with brooding over this 
riddle of life; and Nature is so placid; and the 
sea and the rocks have ground the life out of 
those two to whom life was so sweet. Oh, how 
hard it must have been to yield it up ! I can 
see how they looked, what they did, what they 
said; my imagination will not cease picturing it 
all. 



1874] LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER 57 

Now ^ that the daily communication with the 
continent is at last established, I feel so close 
to all my friends ! Quite within reach of every- 
body, and I am so thankful! I only wish it 
could last forever! I cannot tell you how I 
have enjoyed the spring, how doubly beautiful 
every softening aspect of nature has been to 
me, after the winter's discontent and poverty. 
Keally I think the world never began to be so 
beautiful before! The birds do sing so; and as 
for the sandpipers, when I hear them calling 
in the rich twilights, it seems to me that there 
is nothing more to be desired on earth. I have 
not seen one lilac spike, not one apple blossom, 
this year, but I 'd rather have the sandpipers 
if I can't have both ! I hear the country has 
been radiant with blossoms. Well, I am more 
than content with what I have. I don't envy 
you a bit. My little garden sprang into such 
life of a sudden; all the seeds I planted, and a 
million more beside, came rushing up out of the 
ground so fast that I hardly knew how to man- 
age them, and have been obliged to throw away 
enough flowers to stock half a dozen gardens, 
in order to let the remaining plants have room 
to grow. Such mats of pansi^es! And that 
flaming California poppy has spread every- 
1 To Fcrolinc W. Fox. Shoals, June 16, 1874. 



58 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1874 

where. It breaks my heart to have to pull up 
a single one! Eanks of sweet-peas I have, and 
mignonette by the bushel. If I can only keep 
the weeds away! I wish I could show you 
my pretty awning on the west piazza, it is so 
gay and effective, with broad stripes of blue and 
white and edges of scarlet. They are cutting the 
grass on the lawn to-day, and the air is so sweet 
with land and sea scents ! 

I^ have just made a discovery which fills me 
with — " vexation " I think would be the proper 
word; namely, that your son has been here for 
a week, and I did not know him and nobody 
told me he was here ! . . . 

Dear friend, I have to thank you for the 
postal card about planting the lilies. How good 
you are to me! Did Carry tell you I have 
taken to painting, — " wrastling with art," I call 
it, in the wildest manner ? This woodbine leaf 
at the top of the first page of this note I copied 
from nature. Of course it is n't very good, but 
it shows hope of better things, don't you think 
so ? Do say you do ! I can scarcely think of 
anything else. I want to paint everything I 
see; every leaf, stem, seed vessel, grass blade, 
rush, and reed and flower has new charms, and 

1 To Feroline W. Fox. Shoals, September 22, 1874. 



1874] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 59 

I thought I knew them all before. Such a new 
world opens, for I feel it in me ; I know I can 
do it, and I am going to do it ! What a re- 
source for the dreary winter days to come ! I 
know you will be glad for me. 

See, I made this red leaf for you ^ above. I 
gathered it from a wild vine that crimsoned 
over a rough gray stone, and copied it as near 
as I could. Not very well, but I have n't had 
a lesson yet, and of course one can't be perfect 
in a first effort. But do be glad for me that I 
can do it, it is such a delight, such a resource 
in the drear days to come to look forward to ! 

Tell me, is your sermon in answer to Tyn- 
dall's address (which, by the way, I have just 
got hold of in the "Popular Science Monthly,'' 
and haven't yet read) to be published any- 
where? And, if so, won't you send it to me, 
please ? Would I could have heard it ! 

It is lovely yet here; the little room is so 
cozy, still bright with flowers and firelight, and 
prettier yet for my paraphernalia of painting, 
and groups of burning red and golden leaves, 
and tiny brown rushes and grasses and poppy- 
heads and larkspur spikes, all sorts of studies 
to gloat over. I have made a little vignette of 
White Island. 

i To John Weiss. Shoals, September 26, 1874. 



60 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1874 

Well,^ the beautiful summer has gone at last, 
and all the dear people except Miss Parkman, 
who, faithfullest of the faithful, would gladly 
stay here all winter with me if she could. This 
is the wildest wild night, — floods of rain and 
a hurricane from the stormy east; but here in 
the cottage parlor the fire burns bright, the gas 
fills the room with light, the rich flowers glow 
and send out fragrance. My davenport I have 
wheeled to the fireside. Karl and Miss Parkman 
are playing bdzique close by. The room is so 
charming! there are thirty-two pictures in it 
now. I had such a birthday ! No end of pic- 
tures and things. It was on the 29th of June, 
and I was smothered with roses. How happy 
I was ! Oh, what a lovely, lovely summer ! I 
must tell you something nice. I have begun 
to draw and paint, and find I can do it, even 
without lessons, with more or less success, so 
that I am sure that by and by, after I have 
had some lessons, I can do it well. It is so 
delightful ! I want to paint everything I see. 
It will be such a resource in winter loneliness 
to come, for I expect to spend the greater part 
of the winter here. Though my mother is better 
now than she has been for two years, I don't 
dare to leave her all alone with only the ser- 
1 To Elizabeth D. Pierce. Shoals, September 29, 1874. 



1874] LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER 61 

vants and my brothers in this ^reat loneliness. 
Alas that it should be so ! I do so dread the 
exile, the bitter, long loneliness. It is only 
the sense of duty done that keeps one's head 
above water in such a case. 

I am so glad you liked the little song. If 
only you could hear the music ! It is delicious ; 
and I have just written one called "Forebod- 
ings," which Mr. Eichberg has also set to 
music, and which he says is the best thing 
he has ever composed, which, considering the 
beautiful things he has done, is saying a great 
deal. 

Your letter was so pleasant! Do write to 
me as often as you can, and give me a blink of 
your light and joy in my white, stark desola- 
tion here in the howling Atlantic. 

I think I did not thank you ^ half enough for 
the address you sent, and for your delightful 
note about it. I read Tyndall's address twice 
over, and yours also, with supreme satisfaction. 
Will he read what you have said 1 He ought 
to see it. What a joy to find himself so under- 
stood and appreciated ! I have been extremely 
interested in Professor Huxley's address before 
the British Association, which I have in the 
1 To John Weiss. Shoals, October 17, 1874. 



62 LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER [1874 

*' Living Age." There is nothing so interesting 
to me as this quarrying of bright minds, this 
digging at the roots of things. "Your little 
hatchet, " — oh, what a weapon ! swift, sharp, 
invisible, resistless. It is like a scythe, as Mr. 
Eichberg says; it cuts a broad swath every 
time you speak. 

The little cottage is deserted now, and I have 
turned the key on that dear loneliness. The 
pictures look down in stillness; the vases are 
empty, the books unopened; no fire blazes on 
the hearth; not even a fly buzzes in the win- 
dow; it is desolate! But outside the little 
garden blooms, still full of color and fragrance, 
for no sign of frost has fallen upon us yet. I 
have moved to mother's room. Through the 
ten windows the sun streams delightfully in 
clear days, and everything grows and blooms. 
Every day the doves flock in at the door, over 
the threshold, to be fed, and little brown song 
sparrows come too, and hop over the floor, as 

tame as chickens. Your E is pretty well, 

but every time the thermometer goes down, her 
strength and spirits go with it. The cold de- 
stroys her. I dread the winter with an inex- 
pressible dread. 



1874] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 63 

You ^ have "no news, nothing to communicate," 
and you tell me this delightful story of Tyn- 
dall's gladness, which makes me glow with joy. 
Well may he be glad and proud! Oh, why 
cannot I always hear you, I wonder! I wish 
for it most ardently. Por God leads you up to 
the heights, and you call us up to you. 

No wonder Tyndall took your "discourse to 
bed, but not to sleep " ! Your note has made 
this dull day of November warm and bright. 
Be sure no human creature rejoices in your joy 
more sincerely, with more loving enthusiasm, 
than your grateful Celia Thaxter. 

My dear boy,^ I miss "people and things" 
very much in my solitude, but there might be 
a worse lot and I won't complain, though it is 
sometimes a hard fight between myself and the 
blues when I do not get a mail for twelve days, 
as happened lately. 

Oh, how long it seems to summer! I can 
hardly believe there will ever be another, and 
that all my friends, or so many of them, will 
come back to bless me with their presence. I 
wish I had a little painting for you, Arpkd dear, 



1 To John Weiss. Shoals, November 22, 1874. 

2 To Arpiid Sandor Grossman. Shoals, November 23, 
1874. 



64 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1875 

but next time I write I shall hope to have 
something. It is such a pleasure to find I can 
do it, you can't imagine ! And I have not had 
a lesson as yet, not one, and I find I can make 
little land and sea scapes, besides flowers and 
leaves and ferns and berries, and all sorts of 
pretty things. 

My ^ heart is sick with the terrors of these win- 
try shoals. Night before last a large schooner 
went ashore on Duck Island, — do you remember 
it ? — lying eastward of us, a mere reef. Your 
father used to go there with Waldemar to fish 
for perch. It was snowing and blowing like 
forty thousand devils! They went ashore at 
about eleven o'clock. The captain, William 
Henry Keen, and another, were drowned. 
"Boys, we must die here," he said; "may God 
forgive me if I have wronged any man ! " and 
then the wave washed the poor captain away. 
Five men scrambled on to the rock and clung 
there all night, in constant danger of being 
washed off. Oh those hours, interminable, bit- 
ter, dreary, till the drear day dawned! At day- 
light a fishing schooner passing saw their sig- 
nals and rescued them. We knew nothing of 
it till yesterday afternoon, when the discovery 
1 To Anna Eichberg. Shoals, March 26, 1875. 



1875] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 65 

of the wreck on the reef filled ns with dis- 
may. It was blowing — ah, how useless to try 
to tell you liow it was blowing — northwest ! I 
can't describe it to you. Karl was set to watch 
if any sign of life appeared, and my brothers 
would have pushed off at the risk of their lives ; 
but while no sign of life appeared, we waiting 
prayed the hurricane might go down with the 
sun: but no, we were forced to go to bed dis- 
tressed with the thought that the poor sailors 
might be dying of cold and exhaustion so near, 
and we unable to help them. Not till three 
o'clock this morning did the wind lull, and 
then Oscar and Cedric started, rowing together 
over the black, still howling water in the 
brassy moonlight. They reached the reef in the 
gray dawn and sought everywhere; could find 
nobody. At daybreak the fishing schooner 
came down, and told them the survivors were 
saved. It was all equipped for wrecking, with 
men and tools and long knives and hatchets. 
All day the island has been surrounded by 
flocks of sails, like birds, the few poor people 
here, the Ingebertsens and others, being allowed 
to secure as much of the driftwood as they 
could; and Hans, our man Bernhardt 's eldest 
boy, with his brother Karl, a morsel of a child, 
went, too; made several trips, and the last one, 



66 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1875 

as he came in his tiny cockle-shell heavily 
laden, a fiend's squall broke out of the south, 
with terrible thick snow, and Hans has disap- 
peared! All the other boats got in, but poor 
Hans in his own land was a telegraph operator, 
and knows no more how to handle a boat than 
any landlubber, and where he will go, or how 
escape death, we know not, and are devoured 
with anxiety. Poor Bernhardt is almost beside 
himself; a little while ago I met him on the 
piazza, blinking the snow and the tears out of 
his poor, honest eyes. I am the only woman 
who has been told. Hans' s two sisters, Mina 
and Ovidia, would go wild; they know nothing 
at all, they do not guess, and my mother would 
be too horribly distressed. Bernhardt has gone 
over in all the storm to Smutty Nose to try to 
console his wife; they are all so fond of each 
other, these good Norwegian people. Ah me, 
my heart aches for them. Where are those 
two boys ! The sea is black and white as death, 
with horrible long billows that break and roar 
aloud. Their only hope is to steer for the 
continent, if only Hans has sense enough! 
The great danger, too, of that poor, little, tender 
boy freezing to death, — how horrible it all is ! 
Captain Keen's body was found this afternoon 
and taken to the land. The schooner was the 



1875] LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTEE 67 

Birkmyre, from Goniss, Hayti, loaded with log- 
wood for Boston. We had hardly got over the 
other trouble and fear about Julius Ingebertsen. 
Now comes all this. What next? Oh, how 
long to wait before, if they are alive or dead, 
those poor boys ! My brothers walk the floor, 
up and down, up and down, they are so anxious 
and sorry; and the storm rages, cruel, inexo- 
rable, unmerciful, bitter. 

Saturday night. They are saved! But only 
the chance of their having on board a firkin 
picked up from the wreck saved them; with 
this they bailed the water out that filled the 
boat every few minutes, and flying before the 
gale reached the shore, and happily the mouth 
of the Piscataqua Eiver. Poor little Karl was 
so spent Hans had to carry him in his arms to 
the shelter they found. Hans had seen the 
body of the drowned captain drawn up from 
the bottom of the sea about Duck Island in the 
afternoon, and it was such a frightful, intoler- 
able sight, he saw it all the time the storm was 
beating on them, and the great waves tossing 
them, as it seemed, to certain destruction. We 
did not know till noon that they were safe. 
Poor Bernt was working doggedly all the morn- 
ing calking the Lone Star, lying in the upper 
cove, and all the time weeping bitterly : to lose 



68 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1875 

both boys at once! Oh, when the girls were 
told of it! Could you have seen them! Mina 
sobbed and wept, and they trembled, poor 
things, like aspen leaves. Not a thing did 
they know till the good news came. I was so 
glad we had kept it from them. Such a night 
as their father and mother spent last night ! I 
was up early, but not so early but that faithful 
Bernt was at his work, and I called to him, 
"Bernt, have they come back? " He shook his 
head; he could not speak. 

After I have heard you ^ speak, I feel as if I 
had been looking through one of the great tele- 
scopes that bring the awful stars so near; there 
is the same sense of wonder and of awe. 

I am going to Montpelier, to visit there a 
lady who has been begging me to go to her for 
nearly twenty years. Little she knows how 
glad I am to go ! I never traveled so far be- 
fore. I shall see effulgence in the way of color 
at M., for the trees will be in their glory, and 
the mountains are beautiful. . . . 

We went to ride this morning, in an open 

sarriage with two gay steeds, up and down 

among the superb mountains. From the heights, 

the hills were like the sea with a combination 

1 To John Weiss. Autumn, 1875. 



1875] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 69 

of "long swell "and "chop" crossing it, and 
against tlie sky the mountains on the horizon 
seemed to be heaved like petrified waves ready 
to break. And the trees ! fires and flames ; in- 
candescence was the only word I could think of 
to fit the situation. Burning coals the maples 
were, and where the frost had touched some of 
the tops it was like white ashes; I expected to 
see smoke rising. Then the gold and topaz and 
amber flaring up into the blue of the clear sky, 
and the garnets and rubies ! it was magnificent. 
Maples bigger than I ever dreamed they could 
grow, in such ranks, looking as if they had had 
such a good time all their lives, with nothing 
on earth to disturb them, and plenty of room 
to grow and attain to the fullest perfection. 
Enough to do you good it was to see them ! 
These people are so nice; know you, read all 
they can get hold of, of yours and every other 
man who speaks sense. I tried to give them 
some of , your remarks about Providence to re- 
fresh these good friends. 

I must tell you ! ^ I came home like a raving 
lion and tore my new bonnet limb from limb, 
cut off half a yard of that heaven-aspiring coro- 
net, and in the twinkling of an eye turned the 
1 To Annie Fields. Newtonville, November 13, 1875. 



70 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1876 

whole structure into one of grace and elegance. 
(Aliem!) But really, you would imagine me to 
be at least ten years younger, and that peace 
which somebody said the consolations of reli- 
gion failed to bring, is mine, — that of being 
fitly bonneted! 

I know you ^ thought of us in the terrific storm 
yesterday. It was terrific truly ! Had it con- 
tinued another twenty-four hours it would not 
have left stick or stone on the Shoals, I do 
believe. It is utterly indescribable. Every- 
thing that could move in the house shook and 
jingled and rattled, and the roar in the sky 
was perfectly deafening, and the sea was really 
"mountains high." The "Old Harry," invisi- 
ble generally, "broke solid," as the Shoalers 
say, every minute, and all the islands were lost 
in the clouds of flying foam. I went to the 
top of the house for a moment with my bro- 
thers; such a sight hasn't been seen since the 
Minot's Ledge storm. Our only yacht, the 
Lone Star, sank at her moorings and is lost. 
She was our only winter dependence, poor old 
craft. She served us long and well, and we are 
sorry she is gone. We feared to see the solid 
pier depart piecemeal, but the gale lulled in 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, March 22, 1876. 



1876] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 71 

time to save it. The wind and water were 
blown through and through the house ; windows 
and doors seemed no barriers at all. My screens 
served good purpose. I barricaded my mother 
with them from the wind, and made her quite 
snug and comfortable. But I sat in my winter 
sack ^outside sack) all day! To-day two big 
steamers have been cruising about for wrecks. 
I dread to hear of the disasters that must have 
happened. This morning the sun rose clear 
and crimson, and dived forthwith into a cloud, 
and then it snowed thickly till noon, when it 
cleared with a wild west wind. We dare hope 
for news from the continent to-morrow. 

Mr. Howells has returned my MS., and 
wants me to make it more imaginative, — set my 
" constructive faculty " to work upon it, for it 
is full of fine material. He is right, but sup- 
posing one hasn't any constructive faculty? 
Du lieber Gott! then one must live without 
any gowns. Plain facts won't earn them. If 
one could only be as economical as Mr. Emer- 
son's aunt, who wore her shroud alike for life 
and death! 

I am so blue (let me whisper in your kind 
ear !) that I feel as if I bore the car of Jugger- 
naut upon my back day after day. I totally 
disbelieve in any sunrise to follow this pitch- 



72 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1876 

black night. I believe I am going to see every- 
thing of a funereal purple color from this time 
forth and forever ! But nobody guesses it. I 
don't tell anybody but you, whose mind is so 
empty of occupation, you know, and who have 
no drains on your sympathy ! 

Mr. Whittier has sent me a dear letfer and 
"Mabel Martin, '^ with a poem written on the 
fly-leaf, — a little dear, sweet poem, all for poor, 
ungrateful, undeserving me. 

I have been reading Howells's story. How 
good it is! How slight the fabric, yet how 
firm and flawless, how delicate and fine! Oh 
for his gift ! 

23d March. Well-beloved, how grateful I 
am to you for the dear letter which comes to- 
day ! And do let me thank you here for the 
letters you have forwarded; the one from the 
Cowden Clarkes to-day was lovely, full of 
flowers, Venus' hair, daisies, violets, primroses, 
and a small pink rose "gathered at the Ter- 
race fountain, March 2d," for poor me. Such 
a lovely letter ! I am so grateful for it ! 

24th, Friday. Tired am I to-night, dear, 
for I have been scouring the coasts of my mel- 
ancholy isle this afternoon, trying to find sea- 
weeds to return to the Cowden Clarkes for 
their flowers. But the breakers have washed 



1876] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 73 

the rocks bare and clean ! Absolutely I could 
find nothing, and was so disappointed. . . ' . 

Saturday. All day a choking snowstorm, 
to-night floods of rain; and the sound of pour- 
ing water rejoices my heart, for it means the 
bare earth shall be restored to our longing sight 
again. This morning after breakfast I was 
rowed out to investigate the mooring buoys and 
ropes; seeking seaweeds still, found scarcely 
any : the sleet lashed my face, and the cold brine 
stung my hands like bitter fire. All day I 
have been at work over the few weeds I found, 
nothing worth speaking of, hardly worth arrang- 
ing. There are certain cracks and crannies, 
deep fissures in the eastern coast, I mean to 
investigate before I give up my hopes, but I 
fear the tempests have left me nothing. 

Sunday. Oh, Annie, this morning a brig 
went ashore on White Island ledge in the fog, 
at eight o'clock. The breakers tore off her 
stern and drowned five men there, then tossed 
the vessel upon Londoners', close by us, and 
drowned three more. Only one man escaped 
to tell the tale, and he says he knows not 
how he saved his life; he found himself on 
shore, banged and bruised, all his mates gone 
and the great brig a heap of bristling ruins, 
broken in half, high and dry on the iron rocks. 



74 LETTERS OF CELIA 'THAXTER [1876 

There is a little deserted hut on the island, and 
he made his way to that, found a stove and 
fuel within and kindled a fire there. The 
smoke of this fire was seen soon as the fog 
lifted, but the vessel was so smashed to pieces 
it was n't visible from a distance. Part of the 
vessel's log drifted to our island, a couple of 
loose pages; and a huge round hoop, one of 
those which hold a sail to a mast. I cannot 
describe to you how dreadfully we feel about 
it, so near us! That one survivor is at Star 
Island ; how he must feel to-night ! The leaves 
of the log-book were records of days last Au- 
gust, on a voyage from Annapolis, N. B., to 
Barbadoes. All sorts of things drift ashore. 
I am afraid of the beaches. Eight men are 
lying drowned about these remorseless rocks. 
Poor mother is so distressed with it all ! The 
storm was so tremendous in the night she could 
hardly sleep at all. I never heard a more 
frightful tumult. It seemed as if we must be 
thrust off into the sea with the might of the 
wind. 

Monday morning. The Molly is coming, 
and I close my letter to have it ready. My 
brother is going to Portsmouth for another 
yacht, the Pilgrim, to take the Lone Star's 
place; she was lost in the storm before this. 



1876] LETTERS OF CELT A THAXTER 75 

You^ remember Londoners' Island, where you 
and I went for morning glories ? — where your 
papa pursued the pensive perch on summer 
afternoons ? Alas, how can I stop to think of 
jests! A brig lies there smashed to atoms, 
eight men drowned, but one alive to tell the 
tale, of all the crew. She struck this morning 
at eight o'clock, in broad daylight (but there 
was a thick fog), on the outlying rocks of White 
Island; a breaker carried off part of her stern 
and drowned five of her crew ! Then she rolled 
and wallowed to Londoners' and went ashore 
there on the western slope of the beach, where 
the tender green morning-glory vines and rosy 
blossoms blow gently in the summer time, as 
you and I found them, — don't you remember? 
— like a soft, green cascade down the beach. 
There the brig was tossed and smashed in two, 
the two halves lying jammed together on end. 
There three more men were drowned. Think 
of the force of the sea that could use the huge 
hull of a vessel like a child's toy! The mate 
alone escaped: he says he knows not how he 
did it, but he found himself lying bruised and 
aching there on the beach, the brig a mass of 
bristling timbers, sails torn to ribbons and rags, 
masts entirely vanished, his mates all drowned. 
1 To Anna Eichberg. Sunday, March 26th. 



76 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1876 

He crept up to that little house, you know, 
now deserted, and found there a stove and fuel 
and he lit a fire. It was the smoke of this fire 
which was seen when the fog lifted in the after- 
noon, and the people from Star went over to 
Londoners'. We did not know anything of it 
till nearly sunset, for the fog lingered low and 
the wreck is such a heap of ruins as hardly 
to be visible from afar. Part of her log, a 
few loose sheets, drifted over here, and one of 
the great wooden rings that held her sails to 
the masts. The storm was beyond description 
frightful last night. Such a month of March 
as this I have never known. 

Dear child, ^ I have been over to see the wreck ! 
My brother Cedric rowed me over to London- 
ers' this afternoon. It was perfectly still and 
bright. The huge vessel lay on the western 
side of the beach, not far from our morning- 
glory garden. Oh, such a sight ! Crushed like 
an eggshell, broken in two, with the forward 
half standing upright and pointing to heaven 
with its splintered timbers. Her huge beams 
were snapped like sticks of macaroni, and frayed 
at the ends like crossway ravelings; such a 
total and gigantic destruction is not to be de- 
1 To Anna Eicliberg. Shoals, March 28, 1876. 



1876] LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER 77 

scribed. Her sails strewed the wliole beach in 
tatters not larger than a handkerchief, and the 
whole island seemed to have been the scene 
of some giant's preparations for kindling his 
kitchen fire, — one heap of splintered fragments. 
When we landed, my eyes swept the distracted 
beach with keen inquiry. Eight dead men are 
lying about the ledges : everywhere I feared to 
see a ghastly face, a hand, a foot, beneath the 
water or upon the shore. Cables, chains, ropes, 
rigging, anchors, ruins of all sorts, were half 
buried in the rough beach. . . . One thick 
gray vest lay in a pool, and stared up at me 
with ghastly white horn buttons, like dead 
eyes. Iron bolts four feet long were curved 
and twisted like leaden hairpuis; the heaviest 
timbers smashed, broken into squares. I never 
imagined anything like it. I brought home a 
bit of the tremendous thick, stout sails. I saw 
a single perch dragged from the deepest deeps 
and flung high and dry to die in a dry agony, 
all black and scarlet. Xo perch yet dare to 
haunt the shores within reach of man, but next 
month they will make their appearance, coming 
in from deep water. 

March 30, Thursday. It is bright to-day, 
and the Molly is out on the fishing grounds 
and we are sure she has a mail on board, but it 



78 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1876 

blew so hard she did not stop on her way out. 
So I close my letters to be ready for her when 
she stops on her way in. I hope you will get 
your little plume with this. I send a bit of 
the wreck's sail; see how strong and new it 
was, and how the edges are frayed with the 
fearful chafing of a few hours in that angry 
sea. Did I tell you? the brig was forty days 
out from Liverpool to Boston, loaded with salt. 

So^ bitter a storm rages! The worst yet. 
Just now we came near having the roof crushed 
in by a falling chimney, but my brothers saw 
it tottering just in time, and lashed it with 
ropes of wire, iron ropes. It was so lucky it 
did n't fall, for it is the largest one and would 
have crushed everything beneath, and made a 
hideous ruin. It is such a dreadful night ! The 
snow and sleet are beating against the windows, 
and we can have no fire, for the wind blows it 
all straight out of stove or fireplace, gas, flame, 
ashes, even brands and coal! We are sitting 
with the window open, choked with gas and 
half frozen, wrapped in all our outer garments, 
and the snow blowing over our heads ! What 
a nice state of things! I am in deadly terror 
lest my poor mother should take cold. The 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, April 4, 1876. 



1876] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 79 

chimney to motlier's student lamp has just 
cracked where a snowflake blew against it. The 
three student lamps flare and flicker in the blast, 
and there is such a roaring and thundering as is 
fearful to hear. Ah me, will there ever be an 
end to it all ! Never was such a spring known 
before ! 

6th, Thursday. Well, we lived through it 
somehow, and yesterday the wind had hauled a 
point or two, enough to liberate the fireplaces, 
so we struggled through; and to-day the wind 
is southwest and still, though the breakers rear 
their crested heads on all sides. This has 
been the worst storm yet. The sea began to 
sweep into the garden toward the big house ; a 
little longer and our plight would indeed have 
been forlorn. But it always lulls in time to 
save us. Some day it won't, however, and off 
we shall go. I wish I could show you a pep- 
per-box from the wrecked brig, the quaintest 
thing, made of creamy white antique crockery, 
shaped like an ancient lighthouse. The pepper 
is put in at the bottom, which is then corked. 
I wonder where it was made. I 'd give much 
to know its history. Such a quaint thing I 
have never seen. Yesterday I made a cushion 
for my sofa. Not having learned an uphol- 
sterer's trade, it was difficult to pick over all 



80 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1876 

the wool and hair and rearrange it, and then 
cover it and prick it through with a big needle, 
and then put on my beautiful Fairchild bro- 
cade. Did I tell you 1 they sent me enough for 
my sofa. That was very kind, wasn't it? I 
wanted buttons, but hadn't any; so I took 
manilla rope and made tufts where I fastened it 
through and through. 

I ^ am at this present wild about R. W. Gilder's 
poem, "The New Day;'' it is the most exqui- 
site thing I have seen in these modern times. 
The whole book, with its peacocks' feathers 
and poppies and daisies and wild roses, is so 
beautiful! And as for the poems, there's no 
English to tell their beauty. Could I but fly 
to your side with it, and have one little half 
hour's delight with you over it! Oh these son- 
nets: "The proud, full sail of this great verse! " 
Don't get the book (were I only where I could 
get it for you !), but wait and see mine with me 
first, and do, do, DO come. 

What shall I write to you ^ about from this 
supreme loneliness? It has stormed for five 
days wearily, wearily; no mail all that time. 

1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, June 29, 1876. 

2 To Richard H. Derby. Shoals, December 11, 1876. 



1876] LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER 81 

The thermometer has only fallen to eight degrees 
above zero, but that was cold enough, and the 
tempest was savage, and the face of the gale was 
awful to behold, — the sea black, swollen, angry, 
streaming with hoary vapor from the cold, and 
flinging broadsides of freezing spray all over the 
island; snow falling, hissing, whispering, lash- 
ing the window panes; the noise of breakers 
booming and thundering; and the voice of the 
wind wailing, howling, expostulating, shrieking. 
Eleven panes of glass were broken in the din- 
ing-room with missiles flung by the wind. 

So the hurricane had a fine time careering 
through the house. I wanted a book at the 
cottage. Nobody could venture for it till to- 
day, when the wind has lulled a little. It 
<> might as well have been in Portsmouth for all 
the good it did me. Think what it must be 
to live for five days in the centre of such an 
insane tumult! But I haven't thought of it, 
busied in my writing-desk and paint-box. I 
am painting on china now. It is most exqui- 
site work, fit for the fairies. 

Last night I had a shock that nearly stopped 
the beating of my heart. When I left home I 
told my husband if he ever wanted me, if any 
one were ill or anything, to telegraph to Cap- 
tain Rand, of the steam-tug Clara Bateman, in 



82 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1876 

Portsmouth, and he would come for me, in any 
weather. Well, last night at ten o'clock, just 
as we had gone to bed (I sleep in my mother's 
room), I heard through the hoarse breathing of 
the gale the long, low, melancholy peal of a 
steamer's whistle. Heavens! I was up in a 
moment. No one heard it except myself. I 
threw something over me and pushed up the 
window, and leaned far out into the fury of the 
storm. The wind cuffed and buffeted my de- 
fenseless head and the snow melted on my face ; 
but through the cannonading of billows, and all 
the confusion of sounds, came again that long, 
sad moan, like a cry for help, for human succor 
or divine aid. Nearer and nearer it came, every 
moment louder and louder, till at last it passed 
us by and went wandering out to the eastward, «, 
some poor, bewildered vessel, uncertain of her 
way. But I was sure at first it was the Clara 
Bateman come for me, and I hardly dared to 
breathe till I heard no longer that sombre, 
startling sound. I trust she came to no harm, 
but what anxious hours must have crept over 
that vessel till dawn! To-night the world is 
quite calm in comparison to what it has been. 
Just before sunset I ventured out into the 
office to see what I could see. I found the 
office windows so shrouded in snow and spray I 



1877] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 83 

could not look out ; so I picked my way through 
the snow on the floor, oi^ened the outside door 
and peered out. Such a bleared and ghastly 
scene ! Solid ice about the island shore ; wharf 
and crane a mountain of solid salt-water ice and 
frost ; snow everywhere ; the sea dull olive-green 
and black ; a rift of stormy gray in the sky. A 
huge black bird, a shag, rose from the rock oppo- 
site me and flew ponderously away. The gulls 
soared and shrieked. I ran back and crept to 
the fireside. 

In the year 1877 letters began to reach 

her friends from the islands, speaking of her 

mother's severe and continued illness. In 

one of them she says : — 
I'm so tired ! My patient caught cold. My 
life is passed in watching draughts and covering 
her. I went to Portsmouth to see the doctor; 
had to stay over night: it was like heaven, the 
little rest, and the sight of the blossoms and the 
green earth, and the dear, kind De Normandies. 

Not three weeks and the doctor can come 
every day in the steamer to see my mother. 
If I only can keep up! Last night some- 
thing so queer happened. I am obliged to 
keep a German student lamp burning all night, 
though I hate the glare ; for I must spring, with 
all my wits and all my implements of war, the 



84 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1877 

instant I am wanted, to the rescue, and there 's 
no time to fuss with lamps. Two or three of 
the sashes were down in the big bay-window, and 
between two and three o'clock in the morning 
it began softly to rain, and all at once the room 
filled with birds. Song sparrows, flycatchers, 
wrens, nuthatches, yellow birds, thrushes, all 
kinds of lovely feathered creatures, fluttered in 
and sat on picture frames and gas fixtures, 
or whirled, agitated, round in mid-air; while 
troops of others beat their heads against the 
glass outside, vainly striving to get in. The 
light seemed to attract them as it does the 
moths. I had finally to put it out. We had no 
peace, there was such a crowd, such cries and 
chirps and flutterings ! I never heard of such 
a thing, did you 1 

This afternoon,-^ while mother slept, I sat with 
her, and laid on my only tile, first, a warm 
summer sky of delicate flushed rose melting into 
softest pearly gray high up (the sky which 
faces the west at sunset); and far off on the 
horizon I made the low hills melt in distance; 
and nearer, quiet green fields and bits of wood 
with groups of poplar and thicker masses of 
green; then a low garden wall, and inside the 
1 To Annie Fields, 1877. 



1877] LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER 85 

garden that lovely, pensive Mistress Mary, cop- 
ied straight out of the baby's opera. I have 
n't finished it; my human figure is only out- 
lined. I know it will be difficult, but I think it 
can be done, that delicate work of copying the 
face and hands and arms. Mr. Hunt said to me 
once, "You are not afraid; therefore you will 
be able to do anything," and I never forget it. 
I live in these little landscapes I fashion; I 
love the flowers, and living things, and quaint 
Japanese I work among, with a perfect passion. 
It is all my entertainment, all the amusement I 
have, you know. I am up at six o'clock every 
morning, often before, laying my plans for din- 
ner for the family of eleven (for since mother 
has been ill, six weeks now, I have attended 
to the housekeeping), getting ready the dessert, 
and laying everything in train for the noonday 
meal, that I may paint every minute of daylight 
that I can steal. I take a cup of coffee, then 
arrange my cooking, and then sit down at my 
desk and write till the sun rises, by my student 
lamp, as fast as I can, so not to take my time 
of sunshine for it. We have breakfast at eight, 
when my brothers come down. My little Nor- 
wegians are such treasures! So sweet to look 
at, so gently bred, with manners as near perfect 
as they can be. Ovidia, Anna Bergetta, Anto- 



86 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1877 

nine, — . they are charming. They take such de- 
light in this fairyland of painting, and watch 
from afar, and gloat over near, if permitted, 
everything I do, and clasp their hands and cry, 
"Oh, how can anything in the world be so 
beautiful as that ! " It is all their amusement, 
too. Oh, it is almost spring. 

I have painted this winter one hundred 
and fourteen pieces for different people, — cups, 
saucers, plates of all kinds, a great deal of 
immensely careful and elaborate work. Some 
Japanese things I have been doing are really 
lovely, — plates, tinted first pale sea-green, and 
a Japanese lady, a beauty, no clodhopper, in 
the middle of each, with birds or butterflies or 
bats or turtles, swallows, dragon-flies, lizards, 
beetles, any and every thing, on the border, with 
flowers and grasses or leaves, all copied from 
the Japanese, not evolved out of my inner con- 
sciousness, and so sure to be good. The plate 
I sent you would have been nicer had it been 
a tile. It was n't anything, you know, only 
lovely and queer, with the morning moon set- 
ting, and the sad, still water, the hint of trouble 
in the clouds, and the drear black ravens. I 
don't know anything, but I 'm learning. 



1877] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 87 

I thank you ^ for all your kindness ; it is your 
kindness that touches and consoles me. Now 
let me tell you my great good news. We are 
all going to move to Portsmouth for the win- 
ter. Our man of business in that town is look- 
ing up houses at this present moment, and I am 
presently to go to town and choose. Think of 
that! I know you will be glad for me. It 
seems all like a dream. If we only can get 
mother over! But when the moment comes 
the strength will come, I hope. I fear there 
will not be much time for painting anything; 
orders still pour in, but housekeeping in P. 
will not leave me much margin, I fear, with the 
constant care of so great an invalid. But I 
don't care for anything, so long as I get her 
within reach of help. 

This is only a word to tell you. Oh, but 
I must not forget Appleton Brown. He has 
painted a picture of my little garden, sitting in 
one corner looking across through the fence at 
the sparkling, tranquil afternoon sea, — looking 
across a mystic tangle of straggling green, all 
spangled and sprinkled with stars of gold and 
purple and scarlet, to a mass of cloud-white 
phlox and the tall black larkspur spikes gone to 
seed, tall indeed against the sunlit sky ; a bit of 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, August 21, 1877. 



88 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1877 

the piazza and the striped awning. And the pic- 
ture is exquisite, brimful of sentiment and beauty. 
Do make them go down to you; you will be 
perfectly charmed with them, as we all are. 

My eyes are stiff with weeping and watching, 
but I want to send you a word. My beautiful, 
dear mother is sinking away, and we are heart- 
broken beyond bearing. It seems as if I must 
go, too; I cannot let her go alone. She lies 
looking like an angel, talking and babbling , of 
green fields, and clinging to us, and whispering 
blessings, and smiling as no one else can smile 
for us in the wide world. Almost I perish in 
the grasp of this grief. What do I care for this 
world without her ? If I could but go, too ! 

Dearest Annie, ^ this morning, at half past seven, 
the sweetest mother in the world went, God 
alone knows where, away from us! There is 
no comfort for us anywhere except by the grad- 
ual hand of time. The "consolations of reli- 
gion " I cannot bear. I can bear my anguish 
better than their emptiness, though I am crushed 
breathless by my sorrow. It seems as if I 
could never fill my lungs with air again, as if I 
never wished to look upon the light of day. 

1 To Annie Fields. Wednesday night, November 14, 
1877. 



1877] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 89 

She lies close by me, like a lily flower, her 
snow-white hair under her snow-white cap of 
delicate lace, and her sweet hands folded, her pil- 
low strewn with the brightest flowers that blow, 
— scarlet geraniums, gold chrysanthemums, 
and blood-red roses and bright blush roses. She 
is white enough to cool their ardent colors, and 
beautiful she looks. "Don't bring me your 
sick tints," I cried, "your fainting heliotropes 
and sallow tea-rose buds half blown. This is not 
their place; they are beautiful where they be- 
long, but not by the dead. Flowers with life 
in them, and warmth and gladness, — those are 
what belong here." So they brought the most 
glorious armful of beauty. Ah, how she loved 
them, my poor mother! I never left her a 
moment this last week; she clung to my hand 
day and night. We had no stranger. Mina 
and I did everything ourselves, night and day. 
This morning, when she died, we did for her 
all that was necessary, and made her comely 
and beautiful for her coffin, with only our own 
hands. She breathed her life away so softly 
she looks like a dear, quiet child. 

It seems as if the whole range of the Hima- 
layas lay upon my heart. Shall I ever breathe 
freely again, I wonder! 

We carried my dear mother out to the island 



90 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1878 

and buried her by my father. . . . All was 
done as she would have wished: no alien eyes 
watched her last moments, no strange hands 
touched her after she was dead; all was as she 
would have wished. A large anchor of shining 
ivy leaves had been sent. I dropped it upon 
her coffin down into the grave, the symbol of 
hope. I hope all things, I believe nothing. 
Still the face of the sky is dreadful to me. I 
don't know when this terrible weight will wear 
itself away. By and by, perhaps, I shall be 
able to bear the sight of the sun. 

I wanted to run with your^ letter to mother 
just as soon as I saw the handwriting. Oh, 
dear! Sunday night was divinely beautiful, 
the sky all red with sunset, the sea all silver 
calm, the little moon shining white high in the 
sky. I got the girls to help me, and we all 
went carrying blossoming plants — heliotropes, 
geraniums, fuchsias, pansies all in bloom — up 
to the dear grave, and they helped me set them 
all out, and they made a blaze of the beautiful 
colors she loved in the green and quiet place. 
And then I went and got my brothers and 
showed them what I had done, and we nearly 
perished of it all, the miserable sense of empti- 
1 To Lucy Derby. Shoals, June 11, 1878. • 



1878] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 91 

ness and loss that seems as if it never could be 



The garden is full of things, the phlox in its 
old place and all the same. The honeysuckle 
is in a tempest of blossoming. All mother's 
beloved plants I have and watch and tend on 
the piazza. Here is a crimson gillyflower which 
never blossomed for her, dear soul! That is 
in a blaze of beauty. I am almost angry with 
it for being so beautiful when she cannot see 
it. . . . 

" Lorna Doone " ? Why, I ' ve lived on it ever 
since it first saw the light! Eead it a dozen 
times. I 'm glad you 've found Blackmore, for 
I think there 's nobody like him. 

I don't know where you ^ are. In Manchester, 
I hope. Heaven love you and bless you, wher- 
ever you are. It is six o'clock this blue, bright 
summer morning. I am sitting on my piazza 
with my back to the sun, in front of me, a lit- 
tle at one side, my big honeysuckle in a tem- 
pest of blossoming sweetness to the very roof 
of the piazza. Over the hammock, at the end, 
is a swallow's nest, and the little mother is 
sitting, all fluff'ed up as if she were chilly, on 
the hammock rope, and the father darts in and 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, June 13, 1878. 



92 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1878 

out and round about with a thousand chirpings 
and melodious cries. There is a great crimson 
gillyiiower, with fragrance like a draught of 
perfumed wine, close at the edge of, the piazza: 
it is so delicious ! They would be good for you 
at Manchester — "stocks," for they come up 
every year without sowing; the same plant lasts 
a lifetime, and they are every divine color the 
Lord has made. On the calm, blue sea lies 
many a dreaming sail, and a big gundalow with 
a lateen sail makes me think of the Mediterra- 
nean; never could that sea be bluer and calmer 
than this. I am all wrapped up in your lovely 
fluffy white shawl; it is so pretty and such a 
comfort! I live in it, and am so grateful to 
you. It wraps me about like the soft warmth 
of your loving kindness, you dearest; and when 
I think for whom you meant it first, it is more 
precious still, that you could have found it in 
your heart to give it to me. 

Friday morning. Again on the piazza, in 
the same place, and everything the same, the 
parrot coaxing me with "Good morning! good 
morning, dear ! " To-day the whole world be- 
gins to arrive ! . . . But now begins telling over 
my sad story, over and over and over. Before 
the summer has done, I hope I shall have 
learned to bear it. 



1879] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 93 

My ^ summer has been divine, though I have 
worked harder than ever before. When I 
came down here, I never in my life had been 
so low in my mind. I missed my mother so 
I knew not which way to turn. But Heaven 
sent down here a musician, who played Bee- 
thoven to me morning, n9on, and night the 
livelong summer, and cured my sick soul as a 
splendid tonic cures a sick body. Mr. and Mrs. 
Paine, from Cambridge, — Professor Paine, you 
know, of Harvard, — happened to come here, — 
came for a week and stayed six and more ; and 
though he did not intend to play, and I never 
asked him, he found out how much it was to 
me, and played to me hours every day. I cannot 
tell you what it was to me. I have not stopped 
working once, not one day, all summer. While 
the music went on, while the people went in 
and out and talked and talked, I painted on 
steadily every minute. 

Will you ^ not send me a word ? Just think of 
our having William Hunt here, just shuddered 
back from the dreadful verge, so attenuated, so 
pathetic! He and his sister and his brother, 
and his man Carter, are all housed beneath 

1 To Feroline W. Fox. Shoals, September 10, 1878. 

2 To Annie Fields. Shoals, July 19, 1879. 



94 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1879 

this cottage roof, and I hope and trust the ail 

is going to do everything for him. 

" Fold him to rest, O pitying clime ! 
Give back his wasted strength again." 

Poor, dear fellow! there is nobody I pity so 
much. Mr. Thaxter is here, next door to his 
room; everybody is taking care of him, W. H. 
I mean. ... I told him I wished he would 
consider my little den, my nook, my bower, 
this fresh and fragrant little parlor, as his own 
particular property, and he said, "You dear 
child! you don't know what a miserable, sick, 
weak, good-for-nothing I am, fit only for my 
bed." But he really is coming back to life, 
and eats and sleeps again, and yesterday rowed 
a little in the children's boat on the pond, and 
takes an interest in things, in the charming 
music of the band, etc. He was suffocating in 
that hot Weathersfield. I 'm so glad he could 
get here. 

What did the tornado do to you? Nothing, 
I hope. Naught to us. Mr. Thaxter was read- 
ing Agamemnon to a roomful here, when Zeus 
aloft began so fearfully to thunder we could n't 
hear him speak down here below. 

Early boat whistles and I want to get this 
off. 



1879] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 95 

Of the tragic end of William Hunt's life 

she wrote as follows : — 

I found him. It was reserved for me, who 
loved him truly, that bitterness. All the island 
was seeking him. It was I who went to the 
brink of that lovely little lake, round which 
the wild roses have breathed and glowed all 
summer, and the little birds have come to 
drink and wash in the early morning light at 
its peaceful brim. 

Let me begin. At breakfast he seemed bright 
as usual, then came a tremendous cloud, thun- 
der, lightning, rain; it was so dark we had to 
light the gas. We went over to my fireside as 
soon as it ended. You know he lived in the 
room above the parlor where I used to be; that 
was his chamber. He sat by the fire with 
L. C. and me, talked a little, and then went out ; 
was gone only a few minutes. But the lady 
whose room was behind the parlor said she 
saw him go up to the reservoir and stand on its 
stone edge and look into the water, and then 
toward the house, and then back to the water. 
At last he came back, past the window where I 
sat painting, and in again, and sat down on the 
sofa. "Oh, William," I said, "you are quite 
wet; don't go out again till it clears off; stay 
here by the fire." He stayed a few minutes; 



96 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1879 

he never stays anywhere longer, so restless; and 
then he went out of the door, and I never 
saw him again alive. He hated to be fol- 
lowed and watched. He begged us not, and we 
respected his wish, never dreaming of this pos- 
sibility. Each of us thought him in a diifer-' 
ent place, and it was nearly two hours before 
we all, questioning each other in terror, realized 
he had not been seen by any one ! Up on to 
that bright, sunny piazza of mine, where he had 
watched the flowers and heard the music all 
summer long, they laid his beautiful, dripping 
length, his gold watch-chain glittering, swing- 
ing. They tried to find some life; there was 
none. We took him in, put in blankets, rubbed 
and rubbed. It was mockery ; he had been dead 
hours. Oh, how grand he looked when we laid 
him down and let him rest at last ! Beautiful, 
dear fellow ! we could not keep away from him ; 
he was fascinating even in death, and we sat 
and gazed and gazed, and tried to believe it. 

It is early. -^ No one is up. In this charming 
old town dear J. loves so much, the robins are 
c?^Uing from the elm-tree tops to one another. 
It is so still the sound reechoes from street and 
square. A blithe cock crows. Opposite the 
1 To Annie Fields. Portsmouth. 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 97 

windows of my room the ash-tree, whose scarlet 
berries pleased my sweet mother's fading eyes 
that sad autumn four years ago, is covered with 
knots of snowy bloom, like a bride. Ah me, 
this radiant, blooming, singing, shining world! 
what does it mean with its passion of grief at 
heart ? 

In the spring of the year 1880 the Thaxter 

family flitted away from Newtonville forever. 

The place was sold, and they took up their 

abode at Kittery Point, near Portsmouth, 

within sight of the Isles of Shoals. 

There ^ is a whirlwind of business here. Would 

you mind if my gown hangs up in your closet a 

while longer? 

The name of the place at Kittery is really 
Partington. Sir Arthur Champernowne so 
called it, after his family place at home in Eng- 
land, on the banks of the river Dart. 

Sir Arthur was a nephew of Sir Ferdinand© 
Gorges, and came over here to look after his 
uncle's estates, settled there and called it Dart- 
ington ; so we pick up the name and rechristen 
it, as we did Appledore. Kather a nice name, 
don't you think ? It seems there were two 
brothers Champernowne, Sir Francis and Sir 
Arthur. It was Sir Francis who settled and 
1 To Annie Fields. Newtonville, April 4, 1880. 



98 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

named the place, not Arthur, and Sir Francis 
who is buried there. Is n't it curious that the 
name Thaxter should appear in some of the old 
records of the Champernownes ? 

In the autumn of 1880 Celia Thaxter and 
her eldest brother sailed for Europe. They 
could only be absent from their respective 
responsibilities for a very brief period; but 
such vacation as they could allow themselves 
was rendered a necessity by Mr. Laighton's in- 
cidental illness. Even Mrs. Thaxter 's keen 
senses were dazzled and fatigued by the rapid 
pace at which they whirled along through the 
wonders of the Old World. They traveled 
much too fast for genuine enjoyment; never- 
theless she gathered, according to her wont, 
a' large harvest of pleasant memories. Her 
first letter is from the ship : — 
Here^ we are, "midmost the beating of the 
steely sea," and such a time as we have had of 
it! For we ran the first night into a raging, 
roaring, ranting, tearing, dry easter. Eough? 
I believe you! My brother wanted "to see how 
she behaved in a storm.'' Well, he had his 
wish, and quite enough of it, without a moment's 
delay. Oh, she pitched like a maniac, and she 

1 To James and Annie Fields. October 8th, seventh day 
out. 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 99 

rolled like a drunken elephant ; at every plunge 
her propeller was bare to the blast, and made her 
shake and quiver like an aspen, or, better, like the 
variations on the violin in the Kreutzer sonata. 
My brother stormed up and down, like the jolly 
mariner he is, but I — I lay very low indeed, I 
assure you, and right quiet I kept, nor dared 
I move an eyelash for three days. Then I 
emerged, and Captain Morland tucked me under 
his arm and rushed me up and down the deck 
till I got used to its angle of forty-five degrees, 
and since then I stay on deck all the time. 
But it 's very nasty indeed. Yesterday the 
captain called the sailors to lash me and my 
chair to the iron railing under the lee of one of 
the life-boats, where they had rigged a canvas 
to keep off the flying water, and they lashed my 
bag to the chair, Jessie's chair this time, and 
I lay there, buffeted and banged by brother 
Boreas all day. Of all things I despise a wind, 
and we have had nothing else, and I 'm con- 
vinced there 's an unlimited supply where this 
comes from. The first six hours were heavenly 
calm. Two song sparrows followed the vessel 
till almost out of sight of land. One dear bird 
came and lit close to me on a rope, clinging 
with his slender feet, panting, as much as to 
say, "Really, I 'm all out of breath, but I had 



100 LETTERS OF CELT A THAXTER [1880 

to come after you, comrade, to say good- by." 
Wasn't it sweet? I was so delighted. No 
other bird would have so moved me. 

I hear the boisterous pipe. I am sure they 
are setting more sail: the ship does not seem 
quite so much as if she were trying to stand 
on her smokestack, and scrape the zenith with 
her keel, this morning. 

Up on deck, noon. Oh the blasts and the 
'flying foam ! And they heave the log, and we 
are going thirteen knots an hour ; and the hoary 
sea is a great, raging, roaring waste, water fly- 
ing so that the captain had to come way aft 
here to my cubby-hole under the life-boat to 
"take the sun." Seven compasses on board 
this boat and a man at each; and the man at 
the wheel, his solemn, motionless, level eyelids 
are most impressive. He sees nothing but that 
compass night and day. Mr. F. says he has 
been over lots of times, and a more uncomfort- 
able passage he never had, on account of the 
tremendous wind that will not cease a minute. 

We ^ reached Liverpool Tuesday morning. Mon- 
day night (when we were to sight Fastnet Light) 
I was up at two o'clock. Pitch-dark of course, 

1 To Annie Fields. Red Horse Inn, Stratford on Avon, 
Friday, October 15, 1880. 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 101 

but the boatswain was piping like a whole wood 
full of robins up on deck, and the mariners made 
night vocal with yo-ho-ing. Our means of light 
was shut and locked fast between our state- 
rooms, but I was n't born in Yankee land for no- 
thing. I pushed up the ground-glass slide and 
scratched a contraband and surreptitious match, 
and, lo ! an illumination. On deck it was black 
as Erebus, a vast chill, with a fresh wind al- 
ways ahead. But we sat on the great metal 
sarcophagus covered with canvas (that the bath 
water is heated in) between the smokestack 
and the captain's cabin, with our feet over the 
cook's big range, where fires were still burning, 
and it was very comfortable, especially as they 
brought us hot coffee at once; and then we 
watched the rockets sent up from our ship and 
the answering signals from the invisible shore, 
and it was so nice to think how the telegram 
would directly speed across the world and you 
would all read, "The Batavia is in! " and think 
of us. Such a glorious dawn at last! such a 
heavenly sunrise and the Irish coast, divine in 
color and new, strange shapes ; the hurrying sea, 
all peacock-blue and green; and the most ex- 
traordinary craft flying about with delicious dull- 
red sails that I sketched all day. 

We Avent to St. George's Hall and to the 



102 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

Art Exhibition, and that was very nice, for 
there were many charming pictures, and we sat 
and rested and looked at them. While we sat, 
about a hundred work-house children — girls — 
came up for a lark, and anything so sweet and 
quaint and clean and pretty I had never seen. 
Cheeks like carnations, and bright eyes and 
smooth shining hair, and the nicest little cos- 
tume of ^ark blue, and each with a white straw 
bonnet of old-time shape, with dark-blue rib- 
bon crossed over top and tied under chin, all 
alike, as if they had been turned out of a ma- 
chine by the gross. I can't tell you how we 
enjoyed it. Then the good captain met us and 
took us down to Roby to dine with him, and 
wasn't it just like a chapter out of Dickens, 
oh my ! — "Rosina Cottage," just at the back 
of the station, all smothered in green things 
and full of yellow-haired children, papa's slip- 
pers warming before the fire, and an atmosphere 
of unmitigated loving-kindness pervading the 
whole place. Oh, how they worshiped each 
other ! It was beautiful to see, and this poor 
man is dying to get away from the howling 
seas and stay with them for evermore. Hea- 
ven grant he may! Next morning was bright 
and sunny. We went up on the old Roman 
wall round the city, and oh, and oh, what a 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 103 

morning we had! We loitered all round that 
wall, two miles, and every step was charming. 
The lookout, near and far, was so enchanting. 
You know it all, of course, but everything is 
so new to us, and every smallest detail, even to 
the shape and color of every brick, so different 
and strange. In the Phoenix tower a nice girl 
lay in wait for us with guidebooks and photo- 
graphs. We took a guide and wandered away 
perfectly happy, studying as we went. Oh, 
what a splendid old people, fighting so hard 
for their lives, building like this, under every 
difficulty, such a defense! Oh, well, I might 
write all day of Chester wall, but I suppose 
there is something else in the world; we sjpent 
our whole time on it, and after we had taken 
a peep at the Cathedral it Avas high time for 
our dinner, for we started for Stratford at two; 
so we rushed, and did n't enter Chester town 
at all ! But we saw enough to stay with us 
all our lives. We must allow more time for 
places in future. Our journey here was one 
series of pleasures. When we got to Wolver- 
ton we said, "This must be Birmingham," 
for we thought there couldn't be more smoke; 
but Bloomsbury was thicker yet; and when we 
arrived at Birmingham Oscar said, "This is 
surely h itself ! " and it did look like it. 



104 LETTERS or CELIA THAXTER [1880 

Smoke and flame everywhere and the blackness 
of darkness. We changed there, waiting twenty- 
minutes. I won't go into waiting-rooms, but 
sit with Oscar on the broad benches outside 
to see J and oh the fun! I can't tell you, dear 
James and dear Annie, how hopelessly in love 
I am with the English girls. Oh, their sweet 
seriousness, their dove-like eyes, their lovely 
contours, their fresh, delicious color, their, 
smiling mouths, w^ith such grave and noble 
curves, their modest mien, and flocks of them 
everywhere, a feast to the eyes, a refreshment 
to the soul! It is worth coming to England 
only to see them. At Stratford it was dark; 
we got into the E-ed Horse coach, and an old 
duffer beside got in, and presently he put his 
head out of window and growled, "Haw! Now 
then ! Are yer comin' ? Come on, then ! Ye 
always let the Shakespeare 'bus go first." 
"Comin', comin', sir," said the struggling 
driver, wrestling with his packages (not ours). 
Oscar and I nearly went off again, nudging 
each other in the dark. That English growl, 
it was too funny. As for the Eed Horse Inn, 
it is too charming to be believed. We had our 
supper in a cozy coffee-room by ourselves. 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 105 

Gold carnations ! Yes, just as true as you ^ live, 
cloth-of-gold carnations ! I saw them heaped in 
a shop window; the color of those great gold 
roses at home (Marshal — what do you call 
them 1). With these eyes I saw them just now ! 
Oh this place ! it is so charming ! One eter- 
nal and chronic Italian opera all day and all 
night. Such great basses and tenors superbly 
sounding through the night; such flashing dark 
eyes and midnight hair; and men of all sorts 
and sizes, all wearing long cloaks with one end 
cast over the shoulder with a grace which is 
indescribable; and women wearing over the 
head a square of black lace, one corner gathered 
over the head, the rest falling over the shoul- 
ders and down the back — oh, so lovely ! 
Every woman wears this headgear, of poorer or 
richer materials, and to the older and more 
scraggy it gives a kind of dignity and grace; 
but on the young and fair, ye gods ! how beau- 
tiful it is ! Oh, the sights in the streets ! how 
fascinating! Last night we went out, soon 
after we arrived, into the splendid arcade 
through the square, where the colossal statue of 
Leonardo da Vinci loomed white in the moon- 
light, with the four pupils at the corners of the 
lofty pedestal. Through the wonderful arcade 
1 To Annie Fields. Milan, November 14, 1880. 



106 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

we passed, — it was all glittering with shops 
and royal stuffs and jewels, — and out into the 
square beyond, where the cathedral lifted its 
forest of white marble spires, like frostwork, to 
the moon; wonderful, wonderful! This morn- 
ing we climbed up and out on its roof in the 
midst of those exquisite spires, each with its 
statue atop. The city lay half in soft haze 
below, half revealed — a lovely picture. This 
afternoon we went to a great performance in the 
cathedral. The immense interior was filled with 
a great multitude. There were clouds of in- 
cense, and cords of golden crosses and tons of can- 
dles flaring. The long procession moved round 
the church among the people with singing, chant- 
ing, and organ-playing. I saw a priest the liv- 
ing image of John G. Whittier, and a younger 
one who looked like my Koland. But a great 
many of them were very piggy indeed. Oh, 
their laces, their silks, their gold and silver 
and precious stones, their bowing and courtesy- 
ing, how tedious! how like the dancing of the 
common Lancers of our country ! " But the peo- 
ple 1 Oh, the pathos of it all ! Every face a 
study! Such devotion, such love and sorrow 
and fearful hope ! In all the service in England 
and everywhere there is but one cry to which 
my heart responds. It seems the one significant 



1880] LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTEK 107 

utterance. It is, "Lord have mercy upon us," 
helpless and defenseless that we are. It seems 
to me the whole thing might be simplified into 
that one cry. 

Venice, 16th ISTovember. I wish you were 
here to tell me whether or no I 've got to hea- 
ven before my time ! Last night, in a wonder 
of white moonlight, we glided into this marvel 
of the world. Out of the dark railroad station 
we emerged into the moonlight, on the stone 
steps where the gondolas were drawn up black 
against the quay. We were put on board one of 
these curious, charming things, and waited while 
our baggage was hunted up. The cushioned 
seats were delightful after the rush and jar of 
the railroad car, the long-continued rattle of the 
express train. How delicious it was, — the rest 
and quiet, the balmy air, the salt odors, the 
sheen of moonlight on the glassy tide, the hun- 
dreds of lamps reflected from houses, gondolas, 
all kinds of craft, the delicious language in which 
the boatmen talked and called to each other! 

If you see Hamilton Wilde, do tell him 
what pleasure I have had in meeting some 
friends of his here, Mr. and Mrs. John Field. 
They happened to see a letter addressed to me, 
and when we arrived Mr. Eield came and spoke 
to me, and it has been a real pleasure. Please 



108 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

give my kind regards to H. W. , if you see him, 
and tell him Mrs. Field plays Beethoven 
over my head like an angel. My room, — the 
only one to be had, did I tell you ? — is over the 
Grand Canal. Such a room! vast, with fres- 
coes and carvings, and only seven mirrors, dear, 
that 's all, and two white marble balconies, 
and four great doors beside the proper one 
for human nature's daily use, and Heaven 
knows what, in it. I 'm almost afraid of it 
when I think what has gone on here. Oh, if 
only there were such a thing as time in this 
world! Here are fourteen letters in my last 
budget waiting to be answered; and here is all 
heaven outside the windows, and it 's just after 
sunset, and a man's voice — tenor, fine, clear, 
sweet, sonorous — is thrilling the beautiful dusk, 
heavens ! as if he were Love himself and Venus 
were lending her ear from Olympus. He has 
got a guitar, and how can I collect my wits 
enough to tell you anything! What have we 
done ? Why, the Palace of the Doges first, and 
it pretty nearly finished me. We went into 
the dungeons over the Bridge of Sighs. They 
left us in the dark a moment in the cell where 
Byron stayed twelve hours. We saw the fix- 
tures left in the walls outside in the passage for 
strangling, and the guillotine, and three round 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 109 

holes in the floor for the red current to lose 
itself and disappear. Bismilleh ! It was hor- 
rible! This after the splendors of the palace! 
Oh, St. Mark's! The marbles, the alabaster, 
the mosaics, the carvings ! ISTo wonder E-uskin 
went stark, staring mad! For me, I can't tear 
my eyes away from the pavements long enough 
to get at the paintings and the incredible ceil- 
ings, to say nothing of what lies between. We 
went to the tip-top of the Campanile, nothing 
short of it. A man on horseback can ride to 
the top, the ascent is so easy. Napoleon the 
First did so. There are no stairs. But, dear 
me, you know all these things ; why waste I my 
fruitless breath? Oh, the shops, the jewels, the 
glass, the work in gold and silver, the photo- 
graphs ! We went to the Palazzo Giovenelli to- 
day; that was a palace! The prince and po- 
tentate who owns it was living there, but they 
let us see it. Talk about the Arabian Nights ! 
Aladdin's palace was a woodshed. And such 
pictures, ye gods ! Titian, and Paul Veronese, 
and Tintoret, and Salvator Eosa, lots besides. 
Oh, the walls, ceilings, floors of delicious marble 
mosaics, the superb upholstery ! What 's the 
use! I give it up. We went down to the 
shores of the open Adriatic and picked up 
shells; they were delicate and exquisite. We 



110 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

floated in the gondola when we came back up 
and down the Grand Canal in the sunset, half 
a mile beyond the E-ialto and past such pal- 
aces ! Oh, the " stones of Venice " in the fa9ades 
of these palaces centuries old, the beautiful col- 
ored marbles set in the white, still precious in 
color! Annie, the water is peacock- blue or 
green the livelong time; and as for the sails, 
they are color gone mad! Such old gold, and 
tawny richness of red and orange, and their 
shapes ! Indescribable ! The gondolas are the 
most elegant things ; their shape, their uniform 
black, set off with the glittering brass sea- 
horses or dragons, polished like glass on the 
gunwale each side. The carving and brass work 
on some of them is very rich. And the men 
who engineer them with such grace and dex- 
terity, so that they glide like magic in the nar- 
rowest watery ways, no matter how crowded, 
these men are so picturesque! some bit of 
bright color about them almost always, red or 
orange or blue; and such shapes of caps! and 
such eyes under! and such hair! "Well, what 
is the use! This afternoon we saw Titian's 
dear little virgin in a blue gown going up the 
steps, with the priests standing above her and 
the people below. What a dear/ Do you 
know, I am so impressed with pictures and busts 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 111 

of Titian, though taken at a great age (think 
of his living to be ninety-nine and then dy- 
ing of the plague!), they are so like William 
Hunt. 

We ^ do so rush I canH get time to write, and I 
get so tired that it is seldom I can write at five 
o'clock in the morning, as I am doing now. 
But it 's my only chance. Have you been here ? 
I have forgotten, God made it the divinest 
place. Men have converted it into a pigsty of 
unspeakable squalor. The best thing that could 
happen to it would be to have Vesuvius roll a 
league or so of red-hot lava over it and sweep 
away or bury it deep, like Herculaneum and 
Pompeii, and end it some way. North Street in 
Boston is clean and sweet and wholesome to it. 
It is n't one street, it is the whole great swarm- 
ing town. We ride through miles of it to get 
to any place. Up on the heights are palaces and 
fine houses, and an approximately clean street, 
where carriages and toilettes rival the Champs 
Elysdes, but, ye gods ! the whole town along the 
sea border! No drainage, everything in the 
streets; no windows to the houses; no human 
creatures who ever combed their hair or washed 
their faces since they were born; ten thousand 
1 To Annie Fields. Naples, December 8, 1880. 



112 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

million billion filthy babies ! There is not a ray 
of joy or decency in the place; the only cheer- 
ful element in Naples is the all-pervading flea! 
King Humbert and Margherita are in their yel- 
low-pink palace. Great Heaven ! can they not 
find some way to turn the whole Mediterranean 
in on their nasty city! Oh well, enough! 
Pardon ! 

Our hotel is high up above the smells. Be- 
fore us lies Capri, melting in sapphire and ame- 
thyst. The Mediterranean is wondrous; it is 
like the Arabian Nights. Tongue can't tell its 
color, — its greens, blues, purples, its lambent 
light. It's not like water; it's like leaping, 
liquid, prismatic flame all about its delicious 
islands. Its very substance is colored, as if 
you dripped the fine brilliant blue color we 
have for washing clothes, you know, into a cup 
of water; it doesn't owe alone its marvel- 
ous efi'ects to reflections from the sky. We 
see Vesuvius smoking away, the broad, red-hot 
band of lava down its black side. Just this 
moment it is splendid, its great dark mass 
heaved high against the crystal- pure sunrise 
sky; not a cloud in the whole heaven except 
the mountain's own long, floating plume that 
trails across the sky from east to west, and 
catches all the faint rose-tints of the coming 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 113 

sun. It is so beautiful ! From whence did I 
write last, dear friend 1 Ah me, I am in such 
a rush, as if I were tangled in the tail of a 
comet! I can't remember. 

Then we came to Eome. Oh, but going to 
Florence I saw the first stone-pine and the first 
olive trees; how beautiful they are! Stone- 
pine, olive, cypress, each one is a poem. Oh, 
the Campagna! If I had time to talk! But 
the daisies! I thought of you every minute. 
The first day of December I gathered violets, 
and I went to the grave of Keats. I can't 
tell you with what a feeling I dropped over the 
ashes of his heart the most perfect rose it has 
ever been my lot to behold, one from Vedder's 
bouquet, every flower of which an artist's eye 
selected. I send you a violet leaf I gathered 
from that little lonely grave, and a rose leaf 
from Shelley's, not far away. I scattered some 
daisies over Shelley's. Some one had been 
before me to both places, and a spike of clus- 
tered, fragrant narcissus flowers, waxen white, 
was dying on each grave. 

Well, we came here on Thursday. Friday 
we spent the whole day in Pompeii, that is, it 
took us the whole day to drive there through 
Portici and Kesina, and go through the only half- 
unburied city and back at six in evening. It 



114 LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER [1880 

was breathlessly interesting; excavations still 
going on; something new revealed every mo- 
ment. We watched them digging. Oh for time 
to tell! Saturday we went to Baise, through 
Posilippo and Pozzuoli. No end of Roman 
ruins and Greek traces, the vast remains of an 
ancient city all along the coast. 

Alas, here comes the sun! I must stop. 
Sunday we went to top of Vesuvius, and burned 
our shoes on the hot lava; Monday to Capri; 
yesterday to Herculaneum, and to the most 
marvelous, exquisite aquariums here on the Med- 
iterranean border. Oh, such dreams of beauty ! 
Such colors and delicate shapes of weed, coral, 
anemone, and myriad undreamed-of things! 
and fearful octopus swimming about, the most 
dreadful creature I have ever seen. To-day 
we go to the Museum. They say it needs a 
week; all the treasures of Pompeii and Hercu- 
laneum. To-morrow back to Kome. In Flor- 
ence I moused till I found your Dante's fresco 
on the wall, and brought away a photo of it. 
Saw "Sasso di Dante " in the square, written on 
the wall below which the small iron bench used 
to be, where he liked to sit, near Giotto's 
lovely Campanile ; saw his house with the sweet 
inscription over the door. Went all over 
Michael Angelo's house; oh, wasn't that in- 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 115 

teresting! Saw his old paint brushes, writing 
desk, sword, plans of St. Peter's, etc., manu- 
scripts, etc. 

Mrs. Thaxter's letter from Genoa was one 
of the most delightful of the series. It was 
written on Christmas Eve, when, after de- 
scribing her visits to the palaces and her un- 
speakable pleasure in their beauty and their 
pictures, she continues with a detailed de- 
scription of three visits upon three successive 
days to the Villa Novello, where Mrs. Cow- 
den Clarke, Miss Novello, and their brother 
received her with open arms and with their 
accustomed hospitality. 
The carriage-way [of the Villa Novello at Christ- 
mas] was edged with roses. ... I entered a 
lovely hall with Pompeiian frescoes on the wall 
and a floor of mosaic; the butler showed me 
upstairs through a kind of picture gallery and 
opened the door of the music room. There 
they all were and came forward to greet me. 
They were playing at two grand pianos, so I 
begged them to go on (Mrs. Clarke's two nieces 
at one piano. Miss Novello and the maestro at 
another). They played the Italian symphony 
of Mendelssohn. As I sat and listened I had 
an opportunity of taking in the room and its 
details. In the first place it fronted the whole 



116 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1&80 

magnificent Mediterranean and it was light and 
lofty, and the windows each one immense plate 
of flawless crystal from the ceiling to the floor; 
it was as if it were open on the side toward the 
sea. I could hardly believe there was anything 
between us and the outer air. Walls and ceil- 
ing were decorated with fresh and delicate fres- 
coes, with a light arabesque of gold running 
gracefully about among the flowers and figures 
and landscapes ; the whole room was what you 
would expect, tasteful and charming. After 
the music was done the maestro departed, and 
then we had a long talk. After sunset we 
all went into the dining-room, because it was 
warmer, — a lovely, pleasant room. Oh, the 
flowers! Oh, the roses! Bella Madonna! who 
shall tell? With all outdoors gone mad with 
flowers, you can imagine how it might look 
within. After dinner, which was so gay, we 
went into Mrs. Clarke's library, and by the 
open fire talked and told stories ! Could I but 
tell you about Mrs. Clarke's cap. Such a mesh 
of cobweb lace, — frostwork caught and fixed, 
— a little satin rosette like a flower ! 

Directly after Christmas the brother and 
sister took up their rapid flight homeward. 
Lyons. Friday morning in a gray glimmer. 
Oh, the unaccustomed pinch of the cold this 



1880] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 117 

morning ! The first thing I see out of the win- 
dow is a string of horses, with all their tails done 
up in incorrigible hard knots, dragging cartloads 
of ice in blocks. Everybody blows his or her 
fingers, or crams hands in pockets or muffs ; 
everybody is hooded, cloaked, shrouded, shiver- 
ing. Clearly we have come the wrong way! 
Dear me, the street is so interesting! I have 
dragged my table close to the Avindow; there is 
hardly light enough to paint yet. I have a 
bunch of anemones I 've brought all the way 
from Nice, from pillar to post, with their stems 
in a bottle of water, trying to paint them care- 
fully, faithfully, lovingly. But, Lord bless 
you, there is no time and no light ! However, 
I'm going to do it all the same; have it half 
done. I suppose after breakfast we shall, as 
Carl Weiss says, "take a little keb" (which 
means an open carriage really) and go round 
to see the town, and try to see silk manufac- 
tories and such. Oh, I 'm so sorry to miss 
Bjornson! more than Bernhardt. If there is 
anything I love it 's Arne. Do give my love 
to dear Whittier if you see him. Say I wrote a 
long letter to him, and to Jenny Hunt; pray 
tell her, with my love, I did write to her; and 
say I shall see Mr. Dickinson in London if 
I 'm alive and he is. Had a note from Mrs. 



118 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1881 

D. a few days ago. O my darling, I 'm rush- 
ing against time and my flowers are fading ! 

Here ^ we are at last in this frozen Paris, where 
everybody has a red nose. Alas, to have left 
that golden Eiviera for this arch enemy of a 
climate ! When we left Nice we spent one day 
in Cannes, and went over to the Island of 
St. Marguerite and saw where Marshal Bazaine 
got over the wall, and the prison of the Iron 
Mask. Much I cared for all that! Down I 
sat upon a stone near the beach, and tried to 
sketch an old well with an ancient water jar on 
its broad stone edge, and a wall behind it over 
which the oranges hung their gold, and beyond, 
the soft, soft sky. Ah that sky and this sky ! 
There 's a difference! The great carmine anem- 
ones I found at Cannes, and the rose-colored 
ones; and the armful of eucalyptus I bought 
for two sous from a pretty peasant girl sitting 
on a low wall by the roadside; and the field of 
peas in blossom, rich, royal purple — common 
peas such as we eat, clad like Solomon in all 
his glory ! All along the Riviera we saw fields 
of them white with bloom; but purple ones, 
who ever heard of such a thing! Old Cannes 

1 To James and Annie Fields. Hotel de Normandys 
Paris, January 18, 1881. 



1881] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 119 

was most quaint and charming, new Cannes full 
of lord-grand-high-nabob English. Alackaday, 
how sick the poor things were, many of them! 
From there we posted to Marseilles, and that 
was queer enough, older than old, brimful of 
interest, only there wasn't time to half investi- 
gate it. The old and new harbors entertained 
my brother much, and me, too. AVe poked 
about along them a whole morning. The ships, 
from all lands and climes (packed like sardines 
side by side, with their bowsprits over the one 
long wharf that edged the border of the tideless 
sea), nearly pitched their cargoes out upon our 
heads over their bows as we threaded our devi- 
ous way beneath. There were peanuts and palm 
nuts, and beans and coffee and cocoa and grain, 
and bales of mummy wraps to be made into 
"shoddy '^ (the mummies themselves being used 
to feed the engines on the railroad, my worship- 
ful friends ! Oh, have n't I got some tales, some 
"traveler's tales," to tell!). There was cotton 
seed, wherewith to adulterate the olive oil ! We 
left Marseilles for Lyons on Thursday, the 13th, 
in the rain, and in seven hours we steamed from 
bloom and summer into frost and winter. Half 
way we lost the last dear stone-pines and precious 
olive trees; soon we saw thin ice and sprinkled 
snow; and by the time we reached Lyons and 



120 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1881 

the delightful little "Hotel de TUnivers" it 
was bitter, oh, bitter cold! We left there Fri- 
day morning, but first we saw the silk manu- 
factories and a museum full of all sorts of won- 
derful things found in the Rhone and the Saone 
and in and about Lyons, — traces of the all-pow- 
erful Komans, and Etruscan ornaments, jewels, 
vases, statues, everything one sees from old 
tombs and palaces about E-ome and Ostia and all 
those places; beautiful golden ornaments, like 
the Schliemann treasures of Troy, and oh, the 
slender finger- rings of gold ! I can't tell you how 
they touch me, thinking of the hands that have 
slipped out of them ages ago ! — how they were 
clasped in friendship, when hand met hand, 
those little rings, how many daily acts of life they 
shared. I am thinking of the women's rings 
especially ; their name is legion : those that were 
found in Pompeii made me hold my breath. 
Oh, that wonderful Pompeii! Did I tell you 
at E-ome of the lady next me at the table d'hote 
to whom I talked of Pompeii, saying I wished 
I could only have stayed there as long as I 
wanted to. She opened her slightly supercil- 
ious English eyes with slow surprise, and with 
that most peculiar intonation, that slow drawl, 
that curiously aspirated sort of speech, "How 
extraordinary ! " she breathed ; " I found it ex- 



1881] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 121 

tremely dull ! " Did I tell you of the party of 
Americans from New York, traveling with a 
courier, we met at Naples, and afterwards at the 
Capitol at Eome again, and the lady came up 
to me and begged me to go with her to look at 
a certain statue near the entrance, which I did, 
and beheld a quite unusually developed Diana 
with bow and quiver, hound at knee, and cres- 
cent above brow, complete? "Our courier de- 
clares it is a statue of Julius Csesar ! ^' she said ; 
"now is it?" "Well," I said, "if Csesar had 
a figure like this, being a man, he was a phe- 
nomenon ! " Then I saw that the pedestal of 
the statue had an inscription with something 
about Csesar Imperator on it, but it was so 
absurd I nearly died of laughter on the spot. 
The lady's aggrieved expression was too funny 
— instead of telling the courier to go where the 
woodbine twineth, and using the modicum of 
brains wherewith a merciful Providence had 
furnished her! 

Well, we left Lyons and went to Dijon, and 
it grew more bitterly cold all the time, and in 
that queer little town, at the Hotel de Jura, we 
had very cold noses indeed; and Sunday, in 
the morn, we started for Paris, and were all 
day getting here through a snowstorm, and I 
amused myself all the way writing some verses 



122 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1881 

for " St. Nicholas '^ (about a dear little old-fash- 
ioned girl I saw washing a window in Zurich 
town as we steamed out of it after two hours' 
stay), for the cars joggled too much to write let- 
ters, and I could n't see an earthly thing out- 
side. Oh, I have not lost one fraction of a sec- 
ond of time since we landed on this side the 
world. But I have been whirled like a leaf in 
a hurricane almost all the time, so many intense 
impressions following so fast one upon another. 
Evening, 18th. We have been out all day 
in this slippy, sloppy, slushy, sprinkling Paris, 
for a January thaw arrived last night and the 
eaves weep copiously on the heads of the popu- 
lace, and the streets are swimming away, and 
it is one of those times that try women's souls 
because of their press of canvas that absorbs 
the wet, and they envy the lords of creation 
that walk skirtless over the mud. We tried 
to go to the Louvre, but bless you! it wasn't 
open! For why? There had been a snow- 
storm, and everything in Paris stops short in a 
snowstorm. It was all we could do to get a 
"little keb," as Carl calls it, to bring us the 
ten thousand miles from the station here when 
we arrived Sunday night. Why couldn't we 
go in and see the pictures? "Because they 
were cleaning the snow off the roof of the build- 



1881] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 123 

ing"! ! ! ! How supernatural! That is the 
idiotic way they go on, this side of the world. 
The Shoalers would say, " I guess they are some 
fullish" (foolish). 

Dear friends, I do long to see you, but I 'm 
awfully sorry to be going home, and dread this 
hideous winter passage before us, because I had 
enough coming over, and it will be ten thou- 
sand times worse going back. It is nine 
o'clock, and the Kue St. Honord beneath my 
windows is roaring as if it were midday. I 'm 
tired and chill and must creep to bed. My 
brother has gone to some theatre with Carl. 
The open fire simmers, but it doesn't warm 
this refrigerator of a room. Ah me! The 
Riviera di Ponenti, Monaco, with its walls 
solid purple masses of heliotrope and passion 
flower, or pink with roses, and all its rare 
blooms, and its palms and cactus, and aloe and 
olive! Oh dear, I wish I were a lord grand 
high nabob! You 'd never see me more! But 
I 'm only a poor little pauper with a cold nose, 
so I must go home. Pardon my levity. Paris 
has got into my head. I lov^ you better than 
the heliotrope, after all. 

Oh, ^ if we could only have stayed in those hea- 
1 London, January' 27, 1881. 



124 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1881 

venly places till it moderated up here in the 
north! Mr. Conway came in a carriage for me 
last night and took me to see Ellen Terry and 
Irving in Tennyson's "Cup" and "The Cor- 
sican Brothers. " She is divine ! I saved 
myself up all day, and went at the risk of my 
life almost, for the weather is deadly, but I 
would not have missed it for anything. I know 
you '11 be glad I saw Ellen Terry and Irving, 
and that 's mostly why I write just this scrawl 
to send with the playbill. Such a vision! 
Wait till I can tell you! 

In February Mrs. Thaxter returned with 
renewed spirit and vigor to the old surround- 
ings. 
I send you ^ a little poem, you beautiful, dear 
woman! You never gave me a moment's pain 
in all the ten years I have known you. How 
dear you are, and lovely and good! Nobody 
knows it better than I. 

I have some news to tell you. Don't whis- 
per it aloud, but the woman I brought down 
last seems to be, in the language of the vulgar, 
a trump. I hardly dare to think she is so 
good as she seems. She flies like a whirlwind, 
without a bit of noise, and work disappears 
before her like corn in a gristmill, and all is 

1 To Mrs. Julius Eichberg. Kittery Point, October 23. 
1881. 



1881] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 125 

done well. She comes up the cellar stairs as 
if she were fired out of a gun, only noiselessly. 
She is so grateful and anxious to please I am 
quite scared, and she says the place looks just 
like the island she came from, and she isn't 
afraid of being lonesome. Ye gods ! ^.an it be 
that at last my long lane has found a turning? 
Scarce can I believe it. 

Your ^ dear note last night. Thanks and thanks. 
A year ago at this time we were asleep in 
Frankfurt. I can't tell you with what a wist- 
ful delight I remember and recall, day by day 
and hour by hour, our whereabouts last year 
at this time; though I was so perplexed and 
wretched, still the memory of all I saw and 
heard and felt — all that is priceless. I am 
writing by the kitchen fire; it is but half past 
five A. M. , but Mr. Thaxter did not get off yester- 
day, and makes an early start to-day. A 

has gone to "brush up" the dining-room and 
lay the table. The dim sky is growing lighter 
outside, the kettle sings over the fire, the break- 
fast cooks, and I scribble a little line to you. 

Yesterday I was able to paint an olive pitcher 
for Mr. Ware, and he sent me such a beautiful 
inscription in Greek to put on it, and that made 
me think of you. 

1 To Annie Fic'lds. Fariu, NoviMuher 2. 1881. 



126 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1881 

AEIN • OPON • KYKAO^ • 
AEY^^EI • NIN • MOPIOY • AI02 • 
XA • TAAYKOniS • A0ANA • 
I copied from memory, so pardon the mess I 
made of it. Do you know what it means? 
That my olive trees are the special care of Zens, 
"watchea by the eye of olive-guarding Jove 
and by gray-eyed Athense." Isn't it charm- 
ing? and won't Alice Howe like it on her 
bowl? Mr. Thaxter and Eoland hunted up 
the ancient Greek letters for me (the quotation 
comes from (Edipus Colonos). Mr. Ware only 
sent them in the modern Greek small letters. 
This is the way the inscription was written in 
the Cumsean Sibyl's Cave, in these beautiful 
ancient characters. 

I ^ thought, when everybody went away out of 
the house, "Now, like the witches in Macbeth, 
'I'll do, I'll do, I'll do!'" and I wish I 
could show you what I have done, and how 
pleasant and comfortable — nay, charming — it 
looks. I have re-covered the couch with nice 
brown cotton flannel so there 's not a wrinkle 
anywhere, and it looks fine as brown satin; and 
I have covered the old handsome armchair I 

1 To Annie Fields. Kittery Point, Monday morning, 
November 21, 1881. 



1881] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 127 

bought in Portsmouth with gold and black 
cover, and put brass nails round the edges. 
What a job! but it fits like a Paris glove, cush- 
ion and all. And I made, of old-gold-colored, 
soft, thick cotton flannel, six curtains for these 
windows, and put a band of brown nearly a 
foot wide at top and bottom, and they are so 
handsome! L thought of you all the time I 
was making them. I had no sewing-machine, 
so it took longer. I sewed seventeen rings on 
each curtain, and Karl helped me fit the big 
brass wires I had got for the top; they slip like 
magic, and shut out the howling sea and winter 
weather with a beautiful barricade of comfort. 

Then the pillows, cushions for chairs and 
sofas, and all kinds of things I have covered, 
and every bit of brass and metal in the house 
glitters like gold and silver, and all the win- 
dows crystal clear, and paint clean and every- 
thing in order. The curtains, etc., are a sur- 
prise for the boys when they come, day after 
to-morrow, for Thanksgiving. And now I am 
going to make pumpkin pies and mince, and see 
to my Thanksgiving plum pudding this morn- 
ing. Don't tell of my " doings," dearest Annie ! 
Here peeps the sun above the ocean's rim, and a 
golden glory for a moment with him. And here 
is breakfast, too, which Annie Colmaii brings 
witli such glad and eager service. 



128 LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER [1881 

Yesterday, while I was writing the last words 
of the letter I sent to you,^ I perceived smoke 
in the air, and looking up, Annie, the smoke 
was pouring up the whole length of the crack 
in the floor next the fireplace behind me ! ! ! I 
ran upstairs to John's room; he rushed down 
half dressed : the cellar w^as full of smoke ! In 
a moment all the half-dressed men were on the 
scene. Wentworth fortunately had not yet fin- 
ished his work at the barn and gone home, and 
with lightning speed every bit of fire was car- 
ried out into the snow, and he was dislodging 
the bricks in the hearth, and the smoke fol- 
lowed. Then it was water, water, and finally, 
after working about an hour, they thought it 
was out, and we sat down to breakfast. But I 
wasn't satisfied and I kept saying, "I expect 
every minute we shall break out into a light 
blaze." But they laughed at my fears. Sud- 
denly we all became conscious of more smoke. 
They ran to the top of the house; the smoke 
was coming out in the attic ! ! ! When I heard 
that I thought we were gone, and went quickly 
into my room and put my mother's little jewel 
treasures in my pocket, tried to think what I 
would like to save most, and swiftly rushed 
back. They had torn the whole brickwork 
1 To Annie Fields. Kittery, November 25, 1881. 



1881] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 129 

out by that time, and what do you think! 
they found the hricks had heen laid on wooden 
beams / / / and the beams cut down like bread 
before the axe, a mass of soft, hot charcoal! 
Just think of the man that built that chimney! 
Well, we got it out at last, and, thank God, it 
was only smoke, not yet flame, that had gone 
up through the partition to the attic. But it 
was the narrowest kind of an escape. All day 
long they were at work taking out the whole of 
the hearth, so that the cellar was laid bare to 
view, and it is to be laid, as it should have 
been at first, in solid stone. The mason who 
built it had the pleasure of spending his Thanks- 
giving digging out his wicked, shiftless work. 
It is the greatest wonder on earth that we are 
not in ashes this moment. 

I^ am so struck with the flowers along our 
way, though we rush so fast! Just now we 
passed a brook edged with golden senecio, do 
you know it? growing just like purple asters, 
only bright gold, in cluster; blue iris gro^vs 
with it. The meadow-rue is in lovely mist all 
over the low places. We pass so many kinds 
of loosestrife, I 'm going to set them down, 
" for fun, " as Sarah Jewett would say, as I see 
1 To Annie Fields. Monday a. m. on train. 



130 LETTERS OF CELT A THAXTER [1881 

them: daisies, St. John's wort (blooming), toad- 
flax, white spiraea, princes' feather, roses, but- 
tercups, white early aster, mustard, tansy, milk- 
weed, yarrow, clover, fire weed (rosy purple), 
arethusa, rudbeckia, wild parsley, scarlet wood 
lilies, oh, so superb! arrow-head (white) cym- 
bidium, morning-glory, and golden gorse (only 
a rare glimpse of this), white elder clusters, 
pink meadow-sweet, gold mullein spikes, pale 
primrose, blue-eyed grass (now we run into 
the rain! Oh, I hope your hillside has it!), 
water lilies (white and yellow), laurel, thistle, 
blackberry (still blooming), Gill-go-over-the- 
ground, and crowfoot; going through a wood, a 
glimpse of white azalea. What a wilderness of 
bloom! And now we near Greenland, and it 
does n't seem five minutes since we ran out of 
the dark station at Beverly. And here is pink 
germander ! Dear, let me hear from you soon. 
I had such a happy time with you ! 

At the Shoals. This morning, a little after three, 
I was wakened by the distressed cry of a sand- 
piper. I knew the dear creatures had a nest 
near the reservoir, towards which and over which 
one of my windows looks. I sprang up and 
looked out. Sure enough, round the brick para- 
pet was stealing a hideous three-legged cat, who 



1882] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 131 

got here nobody knows how, and has grown wild 
and a terror to the birds, and we can't catch her. 
I saw the sandpipers flitting and piping. Every- 
thing was rosy with dawn and the sea a mirror. 
I threw on my dressing gown, and, not stopping 
even for stockings, slipped on my shoes, down 
stairs and out of the house, round the piazza, 
up through the green space and clustering rose 
and bayberry bushes, over the low fence, on 
to the broad, low wall of the reservoir, round 
which I ran at the edge of the still water to 
the ledges on the other side, where the tragedy 
was going on. I scared away the cat, and the 
wise sandpipers stood watching on the highest 
part of the rock and ceased their shrieks of ter- 
ror, and peace descended upon the scene. The 
sun was yet some time below the horizon, but 
such a rosy world ! It was heavenly, the deli- 
cate sweet air, the profound stillness, the deli- 
cious color. I quite forgot I was nearly fifty- 
one, and why I didn't get my death of cold 
the Lord he knows, J don't! 

Oh, my dear,^ my dear! Never have I seen 
such roses! Where did they grow, in what 
garden of Paradise ? Such sumptuousness ! I 
am like Portia's lover, you have bereft me of 
1 To Mrs. Lang. March 18, 1882. 



132 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1882 

all words. I cannot keep my eyes away from 
this heavenliness, and as for thanking you, if 
you '11 show me how, I shall be glad. And 
your kindness to my hoy ! He is so moved and 
pleased, and sat up beaming over Rosamond's 
photograph last night till it was a pleasure to 
see him, and so delighted with the other pic- 
tures, too ; but he will write and speak for him- 
self. I was out when your delicious gift ar- 
rived, but he knew exactly what to do, and let 
each superb rose softly down into a great bowl 
of water till every cheek touched the coolness, 
and they were perfect when I came in at six 
o'clock, and this morning they are just as fresh 
as yesterday. 

This chilly sheet of paper seemed so little to 
send you in return for all this glowing bloom 
and perfume. 

How ^ near the time comes ! I am so sorry I 
can't stand on the wharf and wave to you and 
Sarah to the last glimmering speck. Strange 
to say, I like to do this thing, like to hold 
on to my loves as long as light wiU let me, 
till distance devours them from me. I had a 
letter from Mr. Whittier; he says he is coming 
here in June, or first July. But, dear me, I 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, May 18, 1882. 



1882] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 133 

think there will never be any summer! some- 
thing is the matter with the world and the 
weather; the bitter east never ceases blowing, 
and the snn won't shine. Our gardens are 
blighted with frost, Julia's and mine. She 
sent to Vick (and now Vick is dead, too !) and 
got roses and lilies and daffydowndillies. Her 
garden is full, — but, deary me ! not a blink of 
warmth or sun ! But she 's so happy she 
needs no sun, though her plants do. It was 
really bright yesterday, though so cold. At 
night a wondrous flaming sunset, but the robin 
sang of rain all day. I never saw the coast so 
clear in all my life. We saw the White Moun- 
tains, Washington and Jefferson, and saiu the 
buildings on the top of Mount Washington 
with a glass! That is something I never ex- 
pected to see! We could hardly believe our 
eyes. I wonder what convulsion of nature will 
transpire ! This morning it is black and bitter 
as December. 

This morning, 1 at four o'clock, Mr. Thaxter 
knocked at my door and asked me if I did not 
wish to look at the comet. I went to the win- 
dow, and such a supremely beautiful and won- 
derful sight met my eyes that I thought of you 
i To Julius Eichberg. Kittery Point, October 4, 1882. 



134 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTEE 

at once, and your interest in the starry heavens. 
The east was a little red at the horizon, and 
through the morning twilight, steering head- 
long toward the sun, was this magnificent, mys- 
tic object, a round glowing orb, with a tremen- 
dous sweeping tail, taking up at least one third 
of the space of sky in the view. The sea was 
glassy calm; there was not a breath of wind or 
a whisper of water, nothing but the stillness 
and this stupendous object. Keally I can find 
no other word for it; it is immense, and strikes 
you with awe in spite of yourself, beside being 
so beautiful, so wonderful, it makes you hold 
your breath. I would give anything if you 
could see it, and I think you might, and that 
is why I write. From your bedroom window, 
somewhere about four o'clock in the morning, 
if you look out, I think it would be near the 
tall church tower to the right, in the southeast. 
It is steering straight toward the sun. It seems 
a shame to miss such a sight, which cannot 
occur more than once in a lifetime. Do try 
to see it ! I never imagined anything haK so 
splendid. 



I was so glad to hear from you ^ once more ! 
And so delighted to have the extract from Mo- 
1 To Mrs. Ole Bull. 47 State Street, Portsmouth. 



1884] LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER 135 

hini's letter, — you were so good to copy it 
for us. 

You ask about the picture; it was taken by 
a Miss Richards, of Boston. There was a poor 
girl, who had long been stemming bravely the 
adverse currents of life, and who was just in 
danger of going under from protracted ill health 
brought on by hard work of supporting her mo- 
ther and herself. I was so anxious to help 
her, but I never have any money. I was tell- 
ing Miss Eichards about her, and she said, "If 
you will give yourself I will give my work, 
and we can do something for her." I turned 
it over in my mind a little, for I did n't fancy 
lying round on counters, but I didn't hesitate 
long when I thought of this great need and the 
opportunity ; so it was done, and we raised nearly 
two hundred dollars for the poor thing, and she 
has gone to the Azores, hoping to get well ! 
Isn't it beautiful to think we could? And the 
pictures are still selling for her help and com- 
fort at Williams & Everett's now. 

I ^ have had a lovely, hard-working spring, out 
of doors all day doing the things I love best 
to do, and sleeping soundly at night, and better 
in body than for years, for which I am most 
1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, June 8, 1884. 



136 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1884 

grateful. The dear seeds you sent I am eagerly- 
watching for, I planted them at once. The 
slugs plague me sadly still, and my magnificent 
hollyhocks, scores and scores of them, are seized 
by the hollyhock pest, which came over from 
England after laying almost all the family low 
over there, and how does it get here to my 
island! It spreads on the under side of the 
big, broad leaves a yellow crust, beginning with 
small yellow spots, a fungus, not an insect, and 
there 's an end of the plant; it covers all of it, 
stems and all, and devours its life. I wonder if 
it has reached you. The birds and slugs have 
fairly beaten me on mignonette this year. I have 
planted a whole solid ounce, and what the birds 
left the slugs devoured the moment it lifted its 
head above the ground. And I fear the carna- 
tion enemy will cut me off from pinks. My 
carnations warn me he has come; and for the 
poor little margarets, I know they won't leave 
me a plant; they didn't last year. If they 
only will spare the rose campion bed ! it grows 
with the same habit as pinks; and yesterday I 
found one stalk pierced its whole length with 
the wriggling worm. It is detestable ! But oh, 
my larkspurs and lilies! such masses of rich, 
green, strong growth! As yet, nothing has 
meddled with them, but I hardly dare breathe 



1884] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 137 

as much aloud! Not a sunflower will birds 
and slugs allow me. I have planted pints of 
seeds, and not an aster of the hundreds of fine 
plants I have set out from boxes but the slugs 
have gobbled. To keep them, I put a little pot 
upside down over each, and often when I lift 
the pot there is nothing underneath but a slug ! 
the whole green plant vanished, though I have 
ground the pot deep into the earth to prevent 
his getting in. But the sturdy poppies are 
simply glorious in their growth. 

I am dreading ^eo2?Ze, after all this peace, and 
old clothes, and informal existence. 

I wish summer could go on all through thus 
peacefully. 

When I saw you ^ yesterday afternoon, and you 
showed me the bits you had copied from the 
birthday books, I thought of these sonnets of 
Shakespeare, the most consummate expressions 
of human feeling in existence, and thought I 
would copy them for you; the more you read 
them, the more beautiful you will find them. 
But I dare say you know them all, though how 
few people do! I found it hard to choose 
among them, they are so varied and so wonder- 
ful ; if you know them, perhaps you remember 
this one : — 

1 To Ross Turner. March 12. 



138 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 

" Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? *' 
How beautiful it is ! And this one : — 

"If the dull substance of my flesh were thought," 
And again : — 

" Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope," 
And — 

" Then give me welcome," etc. 

Oh, there is no end to them and the beauty of 
them. But I dare say you know them. No 
one yet was ever known to tire of them, how- 
ever, any more than one can tire of nature. 

Celia Thaxter's life was one in which the 
soul's development may truly be said to have 
been made evident. The eagerness with 
which she called others to her side, in mo- 
ments of exceptional experience, was peculiar 
to herself. She did not need to study the 
Scripture words, that no man liveth to him- 
self and no man dieth to himself; her bless- 
ings were her neighbors' blessings, and her 
sorrows became a source of light to others, 
as well as to her own heart. 

It seemed as if the new awakening of her 
spirit to a conscious sense of its own inde- 
pendent, disengaged existence came while lis- 
tening to the music of Beethoven. Day after 
day Mr. Paine delighted to play for her and 
was eager to forerun her wish to hear. During 



LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 139 

the long summer mornings he would repeat 
her favorite sonatas (109 and 110), and her 
expressions of gratitude to him and to Mr. 
Eichberg are more touching than ever before. 
Up to this moment of her life she seems to 
have considered herself a striving, struggling, 
sorrowing, and oftentimes rebellious, atom; 
one knowing only its own fatuousness and 
its own power of suffering: deeper, however, 
hidden in a half - recognized consciousness, 
she was always able to find in the heart of 
nature the same response which she had felt 
as a little child; but her half-awakened self 
was a mist-driven creature longing for the 
light. This light she found in listening to 
Beethoven, and from that moment music was 
more than ever a great factor in her exist- 
ence. 

Soon after this awakening to music, per- 
haps in the following year, the first intima- 
tions of a possible communication between 
the spirits of this world and those in the 
world of the unseen were aroused in her. 
The intense excitement she experienced made 
it impossible to distinguish between things 
true and false; indeed, she seemed to make 
no eff'ort, but was exalted by every breath 
which came to her. At last she was rudely 



140 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1884 

awakened to the untruth of some of the "me- 
diums. '^ Nevertheless she clung to her faith 
in the possibility of communication with the 
unseen, and found great comfort in it. Later, 
theosophy attracted her, especially as taught 
by Mohini. Por the first time the world of 
the Orient was opened, and the vastness of 
this rolling sphere, as seen by the light of 
Eastern religion, absorbed her imagination. 
She saw the Divine life pouring light upon 
the children of men in the far dawn of time 
when the western world was in a sense non- 
existent. The truth came to her in a gar- 
ment of living poetry which Mohini inter- 
preted. He also urged the necessity of put- 
ting aside the "manifestations of spirits," 
the seeking of which he considered dangerous 
folly. He showed how the older religion 
was allied to the teaching of Christ, and 
gave her a copy of the New Testament for 
her study and her guide. From that mo- 
menif her relation to the things of this world 
became quite changed. In the letters that 
follow we shall discern a spirit different and 
calmer, — the spirit of one who has found a 
key into the central chamber we call Peace. 
AlP my life I have wondered at myself, of 
1 To John G. Whittier. 



1884] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 141 

what my pen wrote of itself of piety and moral 
feeling. Now I thank God that in me lay the 
religious sense ready for awakening, the spir- 
itual perception, the capacity to perceive the 
truth in the Scriptures. "They take up a man 
where he is, and leave him on a higher plane, 
every time he studies them." "As soon as one 
knows the truth, then nothing else is necessary. 
Totally against all the world can bring, the 
man says, I stand upon the truth. How much 
it takes away from the load of trouble ! Like 
water under the keel of a ship it (trouble) 
comes and goes; we do not mind it more. 
Truth gives this power. This is the test of 
truth within a man." So, dear friend, I am 
become a most humble and devoted follower of 
Christ, our Christ, for all races have their own 
Christs to save and help them, one being es- 
pecially sent for us, "to call sinners to repent- 
ance and not the righteous." I understand it 
all now, and feel as if all my life I had been 
looking through a window black with smoke; 
suddenly it is cleared, and I see a dazzling pros- 
pect, a glorious hope ! There are two elements 
which Mohini brings which make clear the 
scheme of things : one is the law of incarnation, 
the rebirths upon this earth, in which all the 
Eastern nations believe as a matter of course, 



142 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1885 

and to which our Christ refers in one or two of 
the gospels ; and the other, the law of cause and 
effect, called Karma, the results of lives in the 
past. When salvation is spoken of, it always 
means the being saved from further earthly 
lives, and of reaching God and the supreme of 
joy, the continual wheel of rebirth and pain 
and death being the hell, the fire of passions 
that burns forever, the worm of desires that 
never die. ... I saw lovely Eachel Howland 
at the women's prison, where I went to read to 
three hundred convicts. We spoke of you, and 
she asked me, when I should write, to remember 
her to you. She put on my head one of the 
Friends' caps, a real one, which she took off her 
own head, the loveliest thing! I wish I could 
wear it always. 

How fares it with you ? ^ When I first heard 
of your pain, I thought to write to you at once, 
but I reflected and said to myself, " Better wait 
a little till the sore heart can bear a word or 
touch," for I think at first one longs to be left 
in peace : all words, however kind, are so futile ; 
they cannot alter the tremendous fact which 
overwhelms us. 

To me, death is no longer dreadful; for me it 
1 To Feroline W. Fox, Shoals, June 5, 1885. 



1885] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 143 

has lost all its terrors; it is only a brief pain 
of separation from our beloved; we miss them, 
that is all, but oh how hard it is to miss 
them! I know it all. It has grown to be no 
more to me than when my friend crosses the 
ocean to the other hemisphere. I miss him 
dreadfully, the days seem long till the sweet 
time when I shall again see him; but I know 
he is there, and never forgets me any more than 
I forget him, and that presently I shall join 
him, — the longest time is brief : and it is said 
in that beautiful new life our darlings have 
begun, there is no time, the word means no- 
thing to them any longer. I went to a wed- 
ding the other day, the wedding of my dear 
Ignatius Grossman with Edwina Booth. Such 
radiant happiness I have never seen. I rejoiced 
with them, with the dear fellow who was like 
a son to me. A few days later I went to the 
funeral of a dear friend, Mr. Eobert Darrah. 
That funeral gave me more happiness than the 
wedding had done. I looked down at the 
cloak of a body he had thrown off, the well- 
used garment he had worn so many years, and 
which had served him well, but which he no 
longer needed, and my heart was light with 
joy. I was so fond of him I could only rejoice 
with my whole soul for him; for I knew he 



144 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1885 

was safe with his dear ones, unfettered, un- 
trammeled, happy, and that he could not forget 
us, and would be sure to be ready with welcome 
when we escape in our turn. 

Pardon me, dear friend, if I weary you with 
this talk, but my heart is so full of it, death 
seems such a different thing from what it used, 
such joy, such comfort, it is so sweet to look 
forward to; and for those who have gone on I 
have only rejoicing, and the consciousness of 
their well-being makes it easier for me to bear 
the loneliness without them. I know 'tis so 
brief a time before my turn comes, and I shall 
have all I love. I am sure you feel it, too, do 
you not? Send me a word and tell me how 
you are. I have been so sorry to think how 
lonely you must be ; the separation, even though 
we know how brief it is to be, is so hard while 
it lasts. But it is only to have patience a little 
longer, and the dear hand of your child clasps 
yours, and draws you away from weariness, 
pain, and perplexity into light and warmth and 
joy, and the beginning of a new and beautiful 
existence where all your powers are renewed and 
you begin afresh to live with those you love. 
Ah, how divine it is to think of! It is no 
dream, no fancy. I do not think it, I know 
it is true. 



1S86] LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER 145 

God bless you, my dear friend. I wish I 
could comfort you, could give you the strength 
of my delight in all this, of my content and 
assurance that all is well. I wish I could make 
your brief loss less hard to bear. I think of 
you much and often. 

I^ crept out to the talk about the "Song of 
Songs '^ yesterday and saw Mohini, like a keen 
ray from the central sun, and heard his words 
of fire that burns not but saves, — fire that heats 
not, but lights the mind. Do you remember 
what Schiller said to the unknown author of the 
"Bhagavat Gita" on first reading the poem? — 
"Thee first, most holy prophet, interpreter 
of the Deity, by whatever name thou wast 
called among mortals, the author of this poem, 
by whose oracles the mind is rapt with inefi'a- 
ble delight to doctrines lofty, eternal, and di- 
vine, — thee first, I say, I hail, and shall always 
worship at thy feet." 

I cannot express to you^ my distress at the 
destruction of the birds. You know how I 
love them; every other poem I have writ^-^ 

•«" 

1 To Annie Fields. Boston. •' 

2 To Feroline W. Fox. Hotel Clifford, dortes Stre^S 
Boston, April 1, 1886. '' 




146 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1886 

has some bird for its subject, and I look at 
the ghastly horror of women's headgear with 
absolute suffering. I remonstrate with every 
wearer of birds. I never lose an opportunity 
of doing this whenever and wherever it occurs. 
People don't think what they are doing; they 
do not know what it involves. If they only can 
be made to see it we shall gain our point. No 
woman worthy of the name would wish to be 
instrumental in destroying the dear, beautiful 
creatures; and for such idle folly! To deck 
their heads like squaws, who are supposed to 
know no better, when a ribbon or a flower 
would serve their purpose just as well, and not 
involve this fearful sacrifice! Believe me, I, 
too, am engaged heart and soul in trying to save 
our dear birds. I don't care to head a league, 
because I think I can do just as much good in 
other ways, and I hate to drag myself into pub- 
lic vices any more than I can possibly help. 
Have you not noticed how carefully I keep out 
of publicity? But be sure I shall do every- 
thing in my power in other ways, quite as 
much as I could in the way you suggest. I 
oin this society whose circular you send 
r? continue to work strongly, if quietly, 
the cay'.^e. No one can have it more at 
iieart than I. 



1887] LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER 147 

My dear little Margaret : ^ — The story 
of Eupert is quite true, I am sorry to say. It 
all happened in our house when we lived in 
Newton. We felt so sorry to have the poor, 
pretty little canary killed by that wild butcher- 
bird ! I have heard of a good many such cases ; 
the butcher-birds come into the houses wher- 
ever they can find a canary, if they can get a 
chance. 

Almost all the stories in the book are true, 
my dear little Margaret. 

I ^ hear the rote of the sea distinctly as I sit 
here in the quiet room among the flowers, with 
only Charlotte Dana, and outside the doctor and 
the younger Charlotte quietly conversing. All 
the world is looking at the surf in "the great 
moonlight, light as any day.'' Evidently there 
has been a storm at sea, for the breakers are 
immense. 

News comes to-night from John, my John; 
— a sad accident in Braveboat Harbor this 
morning. Three boys were drowned, but two 
managed to get ashore. There were five in the 
boat, which capsized in the inlet. I long to 

1 To Margaret I. Bowditch. Hotel Clifford, March 31, 
1887. 

2 To Rose Lamb. September 1, 1887. 



148 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1887 

hear from John and Gertrude about it. It 
must have been a fearful shock to them. 

The Turners are to go to-morrow, but Arthur 
Whiting stays till Saturday. His gift is won- 
derful. Dear Eose, I miss you so ! The day 
seems strangely empty without you. 

It ^ is so sweet and sunny and serene and pro- 
foundly silent this beautiful day ! There is abso- 
lute silence; not a human sound, nor whisper 
of wave or wind, nor twitter of bird, nor chirp 
of insect; and the sea is a vast, blue, quiet floor 
under the floods of sunlight, not a cloud in all 
the sky. I wish you were here. 

I was so pleased to get your ^ nice long letter 
and hear the flowers arrived safely, and Anne 
and all were pleased with them! There is 
plenty of time for writing now, and this only 
the seventh letter I have written here since 
supper, sitting by the fire all alone in the Bow- 
ditch parlor, Karl out at his photography, and 
not a mouse in the house ; only myself ! And 
the fire is made of bits of the west end of my 
room, the floor of which has walked off over 
the grass towards the water in the most amazing 

1 To Rose Lamb. September 11, 1887. 

a To Ellen Robbins, Shoals, September 23, 1887. 



1888] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 149 

fashion! Ruth and I promenaded there this 
afternoon with great delight and satisfaction, it 
brought us so near the sea. And the piazza will 
go still further, and Cedric is going to make 
another garden in the green hollow before his 
house, and my piazza will look right down into 
it and get its whiffs of fragrance. Such a big 
room, Ellen! you'll have a place to paint in 
with some comfort. 

I never do allow myself to plan, but when 
it 's a plan that 's got to be built one has to 
plan or it won't get done; but I mustn't think 
too much about it. I haven't been so inter- 
ested in any mundane affairs for many a long 
year! The wind makes such a noise in the 
empty, open, little, or rather big, new, old 
parlor, that you 'd think all the ghosts of all 
the summer visitors were dancing out there, 
and never a soul in the house is there but poor 
me! 

We ^ only arrived here yesterday, being weather- 
bound in Portsmouth from Monday till Satur- 
day. Sunday morning was still and gray and 
silvery calm. We had a lovely voyage across, 
and the island looked like a little city as we 
approached. I 'm so happy to be here ! To-day 
1 To Rose Lamb. Shoals, March 12, 1888. 



150 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1888 

it is storming fiercely, snowing and raging, and 
the sea piling mountains high. 

13th, Wednesday. I wish you could have 
seen the ocean to-day ! Never in your wildest 
dreams could you imagine it. The sea came 
in at Broad Cove, east, and washed everything 
before it, and went through under the piazza 
between the music and main houses and out 
to the other cove, Babb's Cove, west, on the 
other side. The waves rose in great, toppling, 
green walls of water. I never saw them more 
tremendous. It has snowed for twenty-four 
hours; the island is white. Yet I saw a robin 
to-day, and we fed a flock of song sparrows at 
the door. I am so delighted to be here ! We 
keep perfectly comfortable and so busy every 
moment. There is so much to be done. I 
have put more than a dozen boxes of seeds to 
start in my big window, pansies and cobaea and 
asters and lots of things. It is such delight to 
water and watch and hope for them. Karl and 
I are sitting before a big open coal fire in my 
mother's chamber. Now I am going to read 
aloud (from a new book Mr. Garrison sent 
us, on "Eeincarnation "). . . . You mz^s^ get 
this book on " Eeincarnation, " published by 
Houghton & Mifilin, written by E. D. Walker. 
Do send for it at once, any bookstore. 



1888] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 151 

Friday. It cleared yesterday for the first 
time since we came, and the sun shone so beau- 
tifully on the snow- covered island, and the sea 
the divinest blue. This morning they are 
working hard to get the storm-toppled rocks 
out from the Pinafore's path, so she can go to 
Portsmouth this afternoon. 

Such ^ a splendid lecture as Mr. Fiske gave us ! 
I have never heard anything so fine and noble 
and dignified and interesting. It was the Ben- 
edict Arnold, And ever since he came we have 
had such good times, music morning, noon, and 
night. And he has told fascinating stories. 
Yesterday morning Mr. Mason played, like one 
inspired, for two hours. I declare I never im- 
agined he could play so, and every minute I 
wished for you. Then all the evening was full 
of music, sonata after sonata. Paine played 
grandly, and then we sat up till twelve, Mr. 
Piske telling stories. He sang, too, finely, 
" The Two Grenadiers " and other things. 

Monday noon. Mr. Mason is playing bal- 
lades and nocturnes of Chopin. The day is 
divine; the sea light blue and sparkling, beau- 
tiful surf breaking in the sunshine, the white 
Bails flitting and the flowers blowing for dear 
1 To Rose Lamb. July 29, 1888. 



152 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1888 

life, — such glories of gold and scarlet, pink, 
white, purple flame ! How we miss you every 
hour! Mason is playing the funeral m^rch of 
Chopin; it sounds strange in all this wealth of 
life and color. 

I have come over from the big house (where I 
live now), this sweet morning, to sit on my 
piazza in the sun and talk to you.-*- For now I 
have plenty of time for everything. There is 
not a soul on the island except ourselves and 
the workmen, who are busy on the cottages, 
happily out of sight from here, whose saws and 
hammers sound afar off. I am sitting in the 
corner of the piazza facing the west, and the pale- 
blue sea is like a level floor before me, calm as 
the loveliest turquoise color. There are sails 
here and there, white in the sunshine, for the 
mackerel-fishing is going on, as it always does 
in the early autumn. There is the softest, 
faintest lilac-gray ha'ze over the line of coast; 
the thin white clouds are in long level lines, so 
peaceful, so motionless! Every now and then 
a sleepy breaker rolls and whispers in foam on 
the rocks just before me, with a sound like a 
shell when you put it to your ear. Many, 
many little birds chirp and twitter about and 
1 To Rose Lamb. Shoals, September 25, 1888. 



1888] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 153 

rustle in and out among the vines, song spar- 
rows, nuthatches, finches. Some devour the 
insects, the pretty nuthatch, for instance, and 
others eat the seeds of the Japanese hop vine. 
They are all so busy, so pretty, so tame and 
dear ! Yesterday, as I was going down the long 
piazza, Oedric called out in surprise as he came 
toward me; a nuthatch was sitting on my 
shoulder as I walked, quite at his ease, and I 
knew nothing about it ! 

Just now a big hawk swept down and past 
the railing, so near I could hear the whir of 
his wings. I do love to have the birds so 
tame, and I am really grateful to Heaven there 
is no one here to shoot hawk or curlew, wild 
pigeon or plover, or lovely long-legged heron, 
for they all come here in the autumn, and many 
another delightful feathered creature beside. 
Cedric is drawing his nets out in front, mack- 
erel nets and lobster traps. I see him taking 
out lots of fish. High up above him in the 
blue a little thin white moon is softly out- 
lined, a three-quarters moon; and though I 
know she is sinking towards the horizon, she 
does not seem to have moved since I began to 
watch her, all is so still, no air to stir a waft 
of vapor anywhere. 

The crickets make such a warm, reposeful 



154 LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER [1888 

simmering in the thick grass! Over Julia's 
garden fence the big white and golden single 
dahlias shine like stars, and masses of scarlet 
ones are glowing like the robes of kings. 

The artist you left behind you was so home- 
sick! I was thankful to have her get away 
last Thursday; the idea that she could not go 
nearly drove her wild, poor thing. Oh, the 
hawk has come back, and has perched on the 
corner of Julia's fence; he holds up his head 
like a falcon, his back shimmers with metallic 
lustre, and there are bars of black across his 
long tail. This is most exciting! Instantly 
every little bird is mute; they have all hidden, 
and are quite dumb with fear. Now, is n't it 
strange that among their own kind they should 
have an enemy so fearful and so fell? Worse 
than the guns of human folk, more accurate, 
more deadly in aim, more cruel. No; on the 
whole I 'm afraid my hospitality does not ex- 
tend to the hawk, after all. I wish he would 
take wing for the continent and leave us alone, 
the birds and me. 

I^ write this little word just to say I am "a 

truly" grandmother at last, and Roland sent 

me a tiny satin lock of little Charles Eliot 

1 To Annie Fields. Shoals, November 10, 1888. 



1888] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 155 

Thaxter's hair in his last letter, for he has 
named his boy after his best friend. I trust 
all is going well, as it was a week ago, with 
mother and child, but these long waits of a 
week between mails are most trying at this 
anxious time. 

Dear, did you think I was extravagant in 
saying I liked your poem better than anything 
you ever did? Because it just fitted my par- 
ticular idiosyncrasies, you know ! 

I only wish you ^ could see this quaintest, cozi- 
est, sunniest little nook that ever was! This 
long room where I sit, the parlor, has four 
sunny windows all bowery with palms and 
ferns and blossoming things, the deep window- 
seats full, and hanging pots in clouds of blue 
and white and pink and yellow bloom, and 
hyacinths all ready to flower, and crocuses in 
boxes pushing up their gold and purple bubbles, 
and flower-stands beside with pinks and wall- 
flowers and all sorts of dear things, all flourish- 
ing, growing, and blooming. 

The window in the corner looks down the 
street to the water of the river; the corner is 
round and picturesque. I found a Lowell car- 

1 To Adaline Hepworth. 47 State Street, Portsmouth, 
December 7, 1888. 



156 LETTEES OF CELIA THAXTER [1888 

pet just the color of the moss in the woods (a 
little greener than the piano cloth), and every- 
thing blends and is harmonious. 

We^ have been settled here in this sunny cor- 
ner, Karl and I, since the middle of November, 
and I find it charming. I have nine rooms, 
and the sun does pour in delightfully. ... 1 
have on this floor this lovely parlor and my 
bedroom next it, a little dining-room, and the 
coziest kitchen, and bathroom, and a nice big 
hall, which is furnished and hung with pictures 
and pleasant as any room, all on one floor. 
Then upstairs there 's a big place for drying 
clothes, a carpenter's "shop" for Karl, nice 
room for the girl, a large room for Oscar, the 
dearest, prettiest little spare chamber, a cham- 
ber for Karl, and a good room for his photo- 
graphy. The house is so old and built so 
thoroughly that it is very warm and comfort- 
able. No one has occupied it before to live 
in; the lower part was a shop, and the upper 
a great hall, the armory of the Eockingham 
Guards; and all the place has been made just 
to suit me, and it is so pretty and comfortable 
I am perfectly thankful to have it. I am a 

1 To M. L. Padelford. 47 State St., Portsmouth, Decem- 
ber 12, 1888. 



1889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 157 

great deal better, and getting well fast under a 
treatment I discovered and apply myself. No 
doctors, thank you. 

I must tell you ^ something. Just now I was 
lying in my comfortable sofa corner after din- 
ner, having a small nap. Suddenly I felt and 
heard a queer fluttering at my ear which waked 
me so that I sprang up, putting my hand to 
my head, wide awake, and, lo! away fluttered 
a lovely pale-gold-colored butterfly with dark 
spots on his wings, and alighted on a basket of 
envelopes on my writing desk. I told Karl to 
slip out the envelope on which he stood, a large 
one, and hold him near a spike of pale-blue 
hyacinth flowers which have just blossomed for 
me in a glass. The pretty creature left the 
paper for the flowers and there he stands, open- 
ing and shutting his beautiful yellow fans, as if it 
were August and he in the middle of my garden. 
Where did he come from"? I call it a marvel. 

We 2 came here day before yesterday ; the little 
Pinafore looked dressed for a festival, with all 
the plants and flowers on the hurricane deck. 
We came safely and pleasantly, and everything 

1 To Annie Fields. February 5, 1889. 

2 To Annie Fields. Shoals, April 8, 1889. 



158 LETTERS OF CELT A THAXTER 

looked so pleasant and delightful when we got 
here. The good Theodine had everything 
bright and shining with a real Norwegian 
shine, and the plants in the ten sunny windows 
made a perfect bower of greenery and bloom. 
I have not seen them so beautiful since my 
dear mother left them. Ah, it is so pleasant 
to creep into that dear mother's comfortable 
bed, and it is so charming to be here ! I love 
it so! The song sparrows sing and sing so 
sweetly, and the great lulling sound of the ocean 
is delicious to my ears. 

I am pretty well, but a little uncertain feel- 
ing stays by me. I am not sure of myself from 
hour to hour, but I shall hope for the best. 

You ^ cannot know what a joy your dear letter 
is to me. I have read it again and again. 
Ah, my dear friend, you speak so kindly i 
But who in our time has given so much 
strength and refreshment as you have done, 
not only to your friends and your country, but 
to all the world, which has been bettered by 
your living in it? 

Yes, I had a quiet, lovely winter in Ports- 
mouth. I did more writing than for years, 
and was well and content until about three weeks 
1 To John G. Whittier. Shoals, April 11, 1889. 



3889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 159 

ago, when I was suddenly very ill, as I have 
been twice before, for no reason that anybody 
appears able to find out, except "overwork'' 
the doctors say, in years past. I say as little 
about it as possible. 

I do not mind the thought of death, it means 
only fuller life, but there is a pang in the 
thought of leaving Karl. But I know the 
heavenly Eather provides for all. It may be 
I shall get quite well and strong again in this 
beautiful air. I hope so, but whatever befalls, 
I am ready and know that all is for best. 

Never did the island look so lovely in the 
early spring since I was a little child playing 
on the rocks at AVhite Island. Oh the deli- 
cious dawns and crimson sunsets, the calm blue 
sea, the tender sky, the chorus of the birds! 
It all makes me so happy ! Sometimes I won- 
der if it is wise or well to love any spot on this 
old earth as intensely as I do this! I am 
wrapped up in measureless content as I sit on 
the steps in the sun in my little garden, where 
the freshly turned earth is odorous of the 
spring. How I hope you can come to us this 
summer! Every year I plant the garden, for 
your dear eyes, with yellow flowers. I never 
forget those lovely summers long ago when you 
came and loved my flowers. 



160 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1889 

I am going to send you with this a little 
copy of an old picture of Karl and myself when 
we were babes together, he one year old, I 
eighteen. 

Thank you for the beautiful poem you en- 
closed. It is most lovely. You ask what I 
have been writing? A great deal, for me. I 
wish I had sent you the April "St. Nicholas," 
for in it is a version I made of Tolstoi's "Where 
love is there is God also." I had such rever- 
ence for the great author's work I hardly dared 
touch it, but I did it with the greatest love. I 
called it "The Heavenly Guest." Dear Sarah 
Jewett has a sweet story begun in the April 
number, and my poem follows. 

Ever with deep, gentle, grateful love, 

Your C. T. 

It^ is between four and five in the morning, 
and so still I can hear the fog-horn at Whale 's- 
back Lighthouse, for a light mist lies over the 
sea; and the birds! oh the birds, how they 
sing, the song sparrows! Such a sound of 
pure happiness is hardly found in all nature. 
There is a girl here who begged to be taken 
in for a week or two, having overworked her- 
self into great exhaustion; she takes care of- 
1 To Annie Fields. April 20, 1889. 



1889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 161 

herself pretty much, and stays on the rocks all 
day, as near as she can get to the sea, in a bliss- 
ful state of mind. She calls the sparrows 
"island bobolinks," for never anywhere has 
she heard them so sing before. That is what 

I always say ; nowhere else do you hear them 
so rapturously warble. 

I I did not forget that I promised to write about 
the birds when I reached this place, but I have 
been so confounded at my own ignorance that I 
really have n't had a word to say ! The kill- 
deer stayed till about March 1st; but we did 
not get here till April, so I missed seeing them. 
There are so many birds that visit us, not to 
stay, for there are no trees in which to build, 
and I know so few by name ! 

The commonest birds, — song sparrows, black- 
birds, robins, sandpipers, loons, gulls, etc., all 
the swallows, barn, chimney, and the sapphire 
blue and white breasted martins, the nuthatch, 
kingfisher, kingbird, etc. , — all these I know, 
but there are so many more ! I wish you were 
here to tell me of them. My brother Cedric 
told me he saw a red and black "flycatcher" 
yesterday; now I wonder just what that was! 

1 To Bradford Torrey. Appledore, Isles of Shoals, off 
Portsmouth, May 21, 1889. 



162 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1889 

Mr. Brewster was here in the middle of July 
one year when a pair of vireos came and spent 
the day in the vine over my piazza; it was so 
pleasant to have them recognized, for I, alas ! 
knew them not, welcome though they were. 

I do hope you '11 find your way here this 
summer, if only to take a peep at our wild 
rock. I should be delighted to welcome you, I 
assure you, more than the vireos, and that 's 
saying a great deal; for I have a passion for 
birds and adore them, though I am so ignorant 
of them. But the sweet housekeeping of the 
martins in the little boxes on my piazza roof 
is more enchanting to me than the most fasci- 
nating opera, and I worship music! I think I 
must have begun a conscious existence as some 
kind of a bird in aeons past, I love them so! 
Do come and let us have a talk about them by 
and by. 

There 's ^ a deep green place where a little 
white-blooming medlar tree grows, and a balm of 
Gilead, and tall wild roses, and ferns and alders, 
etc. , — there the land birds will linger for a few 
days. It is very pleasant, the way they have 
of visiting us for a few days, only we miss* 
them so when they go ! A bobolink spent all 
1 To Bradford Torrey. Shoals, May 27, 1889. 



1889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 163 

last week with us, and we really were reluctant 
to come in to our meals and leave him singing! 
And when a ferruginous thrush came to see us 
last year, all the inhabitants of the island used 
to go out and turn their faces to the sky and 
listen when he began his heavenly pipe ! I am 
writing this at five in the morning, and the 
white- throated sparrow is whistling! I really 
think they must build here; they are always 
heard; "whistlers'' every one calls them here. 
I am always up at four, and I hear everything 
every bird has to say on any subject whatever. 

To-night^ there is the most delicious slender 
red crescent sinking slowly in the west, throw- 
ing a mysterious glimmer on the calm sea; there 
isn't a whisper of wind, and it is balmy and 
beautiful; windows and doors all open; a most 
heavenly night. Now people begin to come 
and I must stop. 

It ^ is just before tea, and I have watered my 
ferns and little winter rose garden, and the sun 
is dropping, large and red, toward the sea; and 
the water is glassy calm, so that a whaleboat, 
which has just put off with a troop of young 

1 To Rose Lamb. August 29, 1889. 

2 To Rose Lamb. Shoals, August 31, 1889. 



164 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1889 

people for a sail, is being rowed heavily toward 
the track of crimson light, not wind enough 
stirring to fill her lazy sails. It is so dark in 
this .corner where my desk is that I can scarcely 
see. 

Last night ^ was like a dream. All the days 
now are exquisite; the sun rises and sets like a 
crimson cannon-ball, and the colors of things 
are indescribably beautiful. And the moon at 
night, and the soft airs and hazy stars, all things 
make me wish for you more and more. Paine 
and Mason played together Beethoven duets 
last evening; it was fine. Then Mason played 
alone, and then Paine. There is an Alma Ta- 
dema, as I call her, here. She looks so like 
his pictures, — crisp, coal-black hair that will 
turn in little rings all over her head in spite of 
combs and braids. She came in Avith a wind- 
harp in her hand. She put it in the window, 
and it mourned and wailed. Later. I have 
just come over from tea. There is no one 
here. The lamps are lighted, the flowers glow 
in their old splendor. Everything is full of the 
thought of you, dear E-ose ! 

As I came over, the light was exquisite, the 
half moon red and warm in mid-heaven, and 
1 To Rose Lamb. Shoals, September 4, 18^9. 



1889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 165 

the west faintly luminous; the tide very high 
and full, the waves whispering, the south wind 
blowing softly ; the tall hollyhocks stirring gen- 
tly against sea and sky, the masses of leaves and 
flowers in the garden dusky and dim, — all so 
quiet. 

How curious the thought of the past is! 
Nearly forty years ago this month I was mar- 
ried. The moonlight on the water looked ex- 
actly the same that evening as it does now. 
How many lives we seem to live in one! I 
heard the cricket in the grass, the same sound 
I heard to-night. 

The boat is just in, dear Rose.^ Mr. Paine 
has gone over for the letters. He has been 
playing sonatas for me this morning, ending 
with the great Appassionata. I say "me," for 
there is no one else to listen. . . . Sat on the 
yellow sofa, I in my corner here, whence I can 
look out into the sunlit, glowing garden through 
the openings in the vines, on the breezy, spark- 
ling sea, whereon the haze lies like the soft 
bloom on grapes, and it makes everything 
dreamy and beautiful, all the sails and every- 
thing. Such a mellow, golden day. We have 
had no such days all summer; utterly perfect. 
1 To Rose Lamb. September 5, 1889. 



166 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1889 

And the gardens are all blooming afresh, full 
of sweet-peas and everything. 

My ^ brother has shot three white owls within 
the last few days, much to my distress. Per- 
fectly beautiful they were, their plumage so 
exquisitely white and soft and clean. My 
brother (Cedric) told me that years ago he 
counted twenty-five within sight at once here, 
one autumn, and shot seven of them. I think 
it means an early winter and cold when they 
appear so early. They are better than many 
cats for destroying the rats that do congregate 
in the most surprising way on these rocks. 
Even the loneliest outlying rocks are infested 
with rats that live on shellfish, etc. And as 
for this big, rambling house, we have one con- 
tinual war, with cats and poison and traps and 
every weapon and device, to keep them down 
about it; it really comes to be a question which 
shall survive, rats or human beings! In the 
autumn, when the birds should be away, we 
import an army of cats; but I dread them, for 
the birds stay till the winter is fairly here, 
scattering flocks and companies, and there is 
continual massacre and flying of feathers. A 
bluebird came and stayed here all alone for 
1 To Bradford Torrey. Shoals, November 10, 1889. 



1889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 167 

more than a week in the last of October, and 
we watched him day after day, and wondered 
what he could be thinking of, to stay here all 
alone. His sweet cry attracted us first, and 
then we saw him actually alighting on the ten- 
nis wires and all about the gardens; perfectly 
tame he seemed to be. A crow blackbird, all 
alone, too, came and stayed a fortnight and 
over, into Xovember, scratching like a hen 
about the manure-heaps on the tennis ground, — 
grakle do you call him? His neck Avas green 
and purple in the sunshine, and he looked like 
a little crow. He was so tame you could 
hardly scare him up. The song sparrows are 
like little dogs and cats, so tame; one hopped 
beside me on the path a long way as I was 
walking the other day, and finally crossed the 
road just before my feet quite at his leisure, 
as if he knew I would n't hurry him. Did I 
tell you the pair of cuckoos stayed here all 
summer long, till late in the season, into Sep- 
tember? Yesterday we found a cat had de- 
voured a large bird, — large as a thrush. I 
didn't see him, but they told me about it, and 
I found the feathers, dark blue-gray, and olive 
at the tips. I startled a big brown owl out 
from under the eaves of the piazza last week: 
he flew away and I did not see him again. 



168 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTEK [1889 

Nuthatches creep up and down the roofs and 
peer at the edges of the shingles. The most 
enchanting little wrens have haunted the gar- 
dens this fall. A pleasant day comes and the 
island is alive with wings, and when it is cold 
they are gone. We have had many more 
crows than usual this autumn. Coots and 
loons and ducks, etc., my brother shoots when- 
ever he can, of course. All summer we hardly 
see a gull; now the water is white with them. 

I have read your ^ beautiful book, every single 
word of it, with the greatest possible pleasure, 
and I feel like shaking hands with you with 
both hands. Not only have I read it once, 
but I take it up again and again for pure pleas- 
ure. I can't begin to tell you how I sympa- 
thize with your moods, with your philosophy, 
with all you say. "Esoteric Peripateticism " 
is the most delightful of all, I think. I do so 
heartily agree with you! "Some of the best 
things of this life, 'things unseen and therefore 
eternal, are never to be come at industriously." 
" Behind the Eye " is another favorite of mine. 
Did you ever watch the fading out of a life? 
Have you noticed, when people go out of this 

1 To Bradford Torrey. 47 State St., Portsmouth, De- 
cember 13, 1889. 



1889] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 169 

world, they pass from behind their eyes, pre- 
cisely as when a face looks from a window and 
then leaves it ? — there is the window, but the 
person is gone. Not extinguished, never! but 
simply passed away from behind the windows 
from which all their lives they have looked. 

I think we all owe you a debt of gratitude 
for letting us see with your eyes and hear with 
your ears as you take us straying through the 
country. An old woman said to me once, "I 
have just been reading your book. How you 
must enjoy your mind!" I am sure I enjoy 
yours, and love to read all you have to say. 
Haven't you a spare photograph of yourself? 
It is a curious feeling to write to "a mind " en- 
tirely, in this impersonal way. Please send your 
shadow to me, and I will send you my flower- 
bank and myself, a grandmother of fifty-four. 

Don't think it arrogance when I say I think I 
have a deeper enjoyment and understanding of 
your ^ book than most people ; it is only because 
I have lived so much of my life quite alone 
with nature. It seems as if a spring of joyful 
recognition leapt within me, as you were of my 
kin. People do go through life so blindly, so 

1 To Bradford Torrey. 47 State St., Portsmouth, Decem- 
ber 20, 1889. 



170 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1889 

dark and deaf to this beautiful world you know 
so well, so dead to the keen and exquisite en- 
joyment Nature offers to all who will take it. 

I was pleased to come across one of your 
quotations about "blunting the fine point of 
seldom pleasure '^ from the Shakespeare sonnet. 
I know and love well those matchless son- 
nets! I think, if all the books in the world 
had to go, I should snatch this little volume in 
preference to anything else, to live with grate- 
fully the rest of my life. How few people 
know or care about them! But what exhaust- 
less wealth, what wisdom, what splendor, what 
utter perfection of expression! The force of 
language can no further go. 

Your note with the knawel just comes. 
Thank you much. Now I don't know it. It 
is very like a little rose-purple, star-shaped 
flower which carpets the ground in places at 
the Shoals; I mean the leaves are like. I won- 
der if you know what I mean? Color and 
shape are exquisite, but the blossom very tiny. 

Thank you ^ for the second beautiful book 
which came on Christmas Day. I am reading 
it very slowly, because I enjoy it so much, and 

1 To Bradford Torrey. 47 State St., Portsmouth, De- 
cember 27, 1889. 



]890] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 171 

go back and read over again, and am miserly 
about the pleasure of it, and make it last as 
long as I can, and after it is all done what a 
lovely mood it leaves one in! There are few 
books, in these latter days at least, that I wish 
to take up again and again for the refreshment 
they bring; and it is the finest kind of a com- 
pliment that can be paid to a writer, this of 
real love for his work, — a wish to make a 
companion of it, and to keep it always at hand 
for the pure enjoyment of it. I heard the her- 
mit thrushes in South Berwick woods. Sarah 
Jewett drove me down into the woods just 
after sunset, and we sat in the carriage and lis- 
tened. I had never heard them before. What 
an experience it was I leave you to guess. 
What you say about them is most interesting, 
and how true it is that a single movement of 
Beethoven's is better than a whole world of 
Liszt's transcriptions! I don't know the brown 
thrush's song, at least as such. Does n't Bur- 
roughs say somewhere that the jay has a deli- 
cious love song? Do you know it? I have 
not yet come to it, perhaps. 

I was delighted when you^ classed the song 

1 To Bradford Torrey. 47 State St., Portsmouth, Jan- 
uary 5, 1890. 



172 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1890 

sparrow among the immortals ! Do you know, 
I have noticed them, too, crouching to protect 
their legs from the biting wind while they fed. 
Tell me, have you ever tied mutton and beef 
bones to the trees immediately around the 
house where you live, for the birds? In the 
yard of the house at Newton, where we used to 
live, I was in the habit of fastening these bones 
(from cooked meat) to a cherry-tree which grew 
close to my sitting-room window ; and when the 
snow lay thick upon the ground, that tree 
would be alive with blue jays and chickadees 
and woodpeckers, red-headed and others, and 
sparrows (not English), and various other de- 
lightful creatures. I was never tired watching 
them and listening to them. Has not your 
heart been torn with the horrors of women's 
headgear this winter? I never have seen the 
like. It is something monstrous ; every femi- 
nine biped goes feathered through the streets. 
I notice Browning has a shot at these senseless 
women in " Asolando," his last book: — 

" What clings 
Half savage like around your hat ? 

. . . Wild-bird wings ! 
Next season, Paris prints assert, 
We must go feathered to the skirt." , 

Then the man speaks : — 

" You, clothed with murder of His best 
And harmless beings! " 



1890] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 173 

"Clothed with murder," that expresses it. 
Poor birds ! Did you notice that six per cent 
of the myriads of birds killed by the Statue 
of Liberty lighthouse were Maryland yellow- 
throats? By and by there will be no more 
birds at all. But I hope I shall be dead before 
that happens. 

How pleasant it is to hear of your ^ lovely life ! 
It is all as it should be. . . . To have each 
other, and a home so sweet, is the best earth 
has to give to her children. Truly I am sorry 
I have to be away just when you are settled in 
town. How I should love to see your charm- 
ing nest! But it is long since I have been 
in Boston, even for an hour, and I have almost 
forgotten how the city looks. I am disap- 
pointed not to be able yet to paint the olive-jar 
I planned for you. . . . Yet I will not fret, 
but take it patiently ; it might be much worse. 
When one gets to my age, the one word of 
which we must learn the meaning is renuncia- 
tion. Things that seemed so important, so 
indispensable, — we learn to let them go, and 
patiently see friends and faces vanish and all 
things depart, till we follow, too, and " lose our 
lives to find them." But you two joyful- 
1 To Mrs. Arthur Whiting. January 9, 1890. 



174 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 

hearted are a long, long way from this mile- 
stone in the road of earthly existence. 

I am glad you^ liked the verses, and glad to 
have your letter this morning, as we are all 
sitting on our trunks, so to speak, weather- 
bound, packed for the Shoals, and kept by 
rains and gales for days. 

I should have written before, dear Ada, for 
I have thought of you much and often, but I 
have been fighting with nervous prostration all 
winter, with the waves going over me until 
I was wellnigh drowned. I have given my 
strength all away all my life, and now I am 
bankrupt. But I am fighting my way up out 
of the IST. P. with the help of a wise old doctor 
who lives not far from here, who feeds me on 
champagne, which makes of me a new creature 
quite. But I 've not much strength to write, 
though I have so much to talk about. . . . Do 
come to the Shoals for as long as you can. 
This spinning footstool is such a slight hold for 
our feet, we shall all disperse so soon our flit- 
ting shades! And where then, who then, of 
those we love 1 

1 To Adaline Hepworth. 47 State St., Portsmouth, April 
8, 1890. 



1890] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 175 

I ^ am all the time vexed at my ignorance, and 
wish somebody were here to tell me the differ- 
ent birds and recognize these delicious voices. 
There are more birds than usual this year, I 
am happy to say. The women have n't assas- 
sinated them all for the funeral pyres they carry 
on their heads. The martins, white-breasted 
swallows, came promptly the first day of April 
and took up their quarters in the boxes we pre- 
pared for them, and very soon all sorts of birds 
arrived by the thousands and made the island 
alive with sound and motion, — legions of yel- 
low hammers, red -headed woodpeckers, song 
sparrows, and many other kinds; blackbirds, 
creepers, wrens, robins, bluebirds; any quantity 
of a greenish-yellow bird, small; and slate-col- 
ored birds with white feathers in tail, a black 
cap, and grayish- white whiskers (the feathers at 
sides of the head had that effect). A flock of 
nearly a hundred blue herons alighted on a 
little island near us, Londoners', and made the 
air ring with their noise. What is the bird 
that comes in such numbers, — greenish olive 
with grayish-brown breast covered with per- 
fectly circular brown spots, a bird not quite so 
large as a robin ? Some sort of thrush ? 

1 To Bradford Torrey. Appledore, Isles of Shoals, off 
Portsmouth, May 1, 1890. 



176 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1890 

May 2d. Yesterday appeared the barn 
swallows. In the hollow where the houses 
stand the white - throated sparrows whistle 
sweet! And I hear the phoebes, and many, 
many others whose voices I know, but whose 
names I don't know. Anything like the joy 
in the voices of the martins and swallows I 
don't believe can be found in nature. Pure 
gladness without alloy. Though the song spar- 
row is sweet and friendly in his tones, he 
does not begin to be so thoughtlessly gay. I 
heard) the first sandpiper yesterday. What a 
heavenly, mellow, tender call! The stillness 
is so profound here (no human sounds; only 
when winds and waters are stirring is the 
silence broken), that every call of any bird 
seems to have twice tjie significance that it 
has elsewhere; you get the whole value of it. 
Until the middle of June the quiet is undis- 
turbed; then comes an eddy of humanity from 
the great world, — chatter of voices, patter of 
feet, much empty sound up and down the long 
piazzas, women with carcasses of the birds I 
love borne in simple vanity above their faces; 
much that is pleasant, too, for I have my own 
corner, my little garden and my friends, and 
the piazza is no more to me than Washington 
Street. In September away the crowd blows, 



1890] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 177 

like leaves in wind, and down comes the healing 
balm of quiet again upon the place. I do hope 
you can run down and take a look at it some 
time during the summer. 

I had a dispute — no, I never dispute ! I de- 
spise it, but a difference of opinion — with a 
friend about what you say on page sixty-nine 
of the "Rambler," in that most charming chap- 
ter. Of course the boy of ten years is yourself, 
— your memory of yourself at that age, which 
walks with you in your rambles to-day, for you 
say it, "I know that those who meet and pass 
me see only one." I do not even ask if it is 
so; I know it. Yet my friend insisted it must 
be some child who w^alked with you ! 

The flowers are earlier here this year, eye- 
bright, anemone, erythronium, etc. 

How come on your essays ? And have you 
not any more of the collection of bird poems ? 
I have thought of several which would occur 
to you, — Dana's lovely "Beach" and Bryant's 
"Waterfowl," "The Birds of Killingworth, " of 
course, etc. Must they be Americans only? 
There are such beautiful English verses ! 

Yes, ^ indeed, I have been terribly ill, — at 

death's door; neuralgia of the stomach, the 

1 To Adaline Hepworth. Shoals, June 8, 1890. 



178 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1890 

doctor says ; too near the heart, you know. It 
would not yield to morphine or anything, this 
last attack, and I should have been glad to 
die, except for the thought of Karl. I don't 
mind the change of state any more than chang- 
ing the town I live in here, though I don't 
think any one gets more enjoyment out of 
life than I do, or loves more God's expres- 
sion of himself in this world. But I don't 
shrink in the least at the thought of the 
change. If Karl could only go with me ! He 
will be so desolate ! These attacks are always 
hanging over me, like a sword by a hair, to 
slash my chrysalis and set me free. Oh, my 
dear, they won't let me do a thing, and I 
mustn't write. I shall only say it gives me the 
deepest joy to think of you and dear old George 
coming so early, and I will have that room 
behind the parlor held fast for you, if it is a 
possible thing, for my own delight and satisfac- 
tion in having you near. I long to see you. 

I^ have moved down to my mother's room 
from the lonesome cottage. The little garden 
is splendid with flowers now, and draped to the 
eaves with thick vines. To-day the rain falls 
steadily, the slow, autumn rain. There is no 

1 To Adaline Hepworth. September 15, 1890. 



1890] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 179 

sound, except the falling drops, — of wind, or 
sea, or bird, or human creature; it seems like 
the end of life, so still and so motionless. I 
think I must go over to Portsmouth early this 
year. The silence weighs on me. I am tired 
after all the long summer. 

The griefs God sends, if one only stops to 
think, after all are easy to bear, because God 
sends them. It is only the pain one brings on 
one's self that cannot so patiently be borne. 

You ^ would have laughed to see the box of 
toads which came for me night before last! 
Ninety toads, all wired over in a box, and won- 
dering what fate was in store for them, no 
doubt. Soon as the mowing was done, all the 
million slugs in the grass charged into my poor 
garden, and post haste I sent for more of my 
little dusky pets, my friends, my saviors! 
And I turned the ninety loose in the fat slug- 
ging grounds, and such a breakfast as they must 
have had! If there 's one thing I adore more 
than another, it's a toad! They eat every 
bug in the garden! In France it is quite an 
industry, catching toads and selling them to 
gardeners; did you know it? I have only just 
found it out. 

1 To Annie Fields. 



180 \ LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1891 



y 



I don't know what you ^ will think of my delay 
in acknowledging your kindness, but I have 
been under the weather for the last week or 
two, and I would not write you till I had 
read every word of this most beautiful book 
you sent me.^ Believe, me, there is not one 
line, one word of it all, that I do not fully 
recognize and thoroughly appreciate. Alas, I 
have been all through this sorrow ! step by step 
I could go with her on the way. In the little 
parchment-covered volume I sent you, the verses 
" Impatience, " " Her Mirror, " " Compensation, " 
all grew out of my sorrow for the loss of my 
dear mother, a loss to which I never can be- 
come accustomed. I don't mean to say for 
a moment that my verses come near Edith 
Thomas's, but there is the same intense feeling 
in both. I think this book of hers felicitous, 
title and all, most beautiful, as I said before, 
and I read and reread it with a pleasure that 
never ceases. I thank you so much for it! 
What an exquisite and elegant little book it is 
outside, too! and so pleasant to the touch! It 
is a treasure. 

Tell me, are you gathering pussy-willows 

1 To Bradford Torrey. 47 State St., Portsmouth, Feb- 
ruary 8, 1891. 

2 The. diverted Torch, by Edith M. Thomas. 



1891] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 181 

and alder catkins by the armf uls as I am here ? 
For Goths and Vandals are hacking and hewing 
at everything in the lovely wild roadsides, and 
I bring these darlings home and give them 
away right and left, such delicious tokens of 
spring at hand! They are so beautiful this 
year, all rose and silver. There 's an old road, 
called the Gosling E,oad, — delightful name ! — 
in Newington, close by, where I go for them. 
Such troops of chickadees I find ! and prowling 
shrikes in all directions, ready to slay and spit 
them on thorns. Why must there be such 
deadly enemies constructed for anything that 
lives! What between the shrikes and owls, 
and cats and weasels, and women, — worst of 
all ! — I ^vonder there 's a bird left on this 
planet! They sent up sixty-eight snowy owls 
from Cape Neddick, below this on the coast, in 
a batch last month! Such wholesale butchery 
is something terrible. "They," I said, not 
the women this time ! but everything that wore 
trousers was shooting white owls the first of 
the winter. Robins are singing at the Shoals. 

I ^ have been packing this afternoon and am 

tired. I have to be so careful of myself, and 

this mysterious thing which seizes me is so 

1 To Anna Eichberg King. Portsmouth, March 18, 1891. 



182 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1891 

mysterious, coming upon me with no reason 
and no warning, I never feel safe a moment, 
though I take every precaution in my power 
to circumvent the enemy. Oh, it is not death 
I fear and dread, but a long, suffering illness, 
dying a hundred deaths of pain before release, 
and making those who love me suffer involun- 
tarily through my suffering. That is what I 
dread. I shall be so thankful if I may slip 
away in a flash; this is the boon for which I 
pray. Last spring I was near that crumbling 
verge, and oh, what fiery torment I went 
through! I don't like this feeling of uncer- 
tainty, and I am half afraid to go to the Shoals, 
much as I desire to do so, before boats run 
regularly. 

It^ is only three o'clock in the morning. 
Since my illness I can seldom sleep after two, 
and in the long, still hours a thought has come 
into my mind which I want to propose to you. 
Do you not think it would perhaps do you 
good if you came here early, if only for a few 
days or a week, while it is yet fresh and still 
and no humanity to speak of about ? It is more 
than three years since I have seen you. 

I am feeling the loss of Mr. Ware so much ! 

1 To Anna Eichberg King. Shoals, April 21, 1891. 



1891] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 183 

He was very near and dear to me, and I leaned 
on him; he was full of cheer and strength 
and comfort, and I loved him. If death were 
the exception and not the rule, and we were 
not so swiftly to follow, these separations would 
be intolerably sad. We know no more of our 
next change of life than we knew of this be- 
fore we were born into it; but that what we 
call death is merely change, who can doubt? 
Surely you do not, do you, dear Annie? We 
shall follow and find them all, those who belong 

to us. 

"For Life is ever Lord of Death, 
And Love can never lose its own." 

The^ "bay birds," as people about here call 
the swimming sandpiper, are seen only in the 
spring, at least my brother has only seen them 
at this season, and he sees them almost every 
day as he crosses the nine miles of brine be- 
twixt here and the port of Portsmouth. He 
says he sees them in very large flocks, yester- 
day saw a flock of about twenty-five, but sees 
them in very much larger flocks, and almost 
always accompanied by a small gull about as big 
as a tern, which is not a tern at all, but quite 
diff'erent. This gull flies with them, swims 
with them, seems always attendant upon tliem, 
1 To Bradford Torrey. Shoals, May 21, 1891. 



184 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1891 

and is not seen at any other time. He does 
not know it at all. There are all sorts of gulls 
about here, you know, but this is a rare crea- 
ture. I have only seen the "bay bird" once, 
and that was a single specimen that I think 
must have been wounded or disabled in some 
way, yet I could see no trace of any injury 
about him. He was swimming about the 
wharf near the landing, a pretty, dainty crea- 
ture, in soft shades of gray and. white, with the 
"needle-like beak," and a rapidity of motion 
that I have never seen equaled in anything 
except a darting dragon-fly, or some restless 
insect. He was never for one instant still, 
darting after his food on the surface of the 
water. He seemed perfectly tame; wasn't the 
least afraid of anything or anybody, merely 
moving aside to avoid an oar-blade, and swaying 
almost on to the rocks with the swirl of the 
water. I watched him till I was tired, and 
went away and left him still frisking. I am so 
glad to tell you of something you haven't seen! 
I wish you could tell me about the different 
sorts of sparrows that pester and delight us. 
They drag the sweet-peas out of the ground 
persistently, when they are ten inches long 
from root to top. There is one huge fellow, 
big as a robin, but "chunky," and dim in plu- 



1891] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 185 

mage; he eats buds of trees, and has a sharp, 
single-cutting note, something like the English 
variety. Then there is one a whole size larger 
than the song sparrow, with a striped black 
and white head; he devours everything. Then 
there are myriad song-sparrows and " chippies " 
and vespers, and I am sure a pair of white- 
throats have a nest among some tall bushes; I 
hear their brimming note, thrice repeated, con- 
tinually, beginning at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. 

Oh dear, I shall not die happy till I have 
had a bird talk with you ! I want to be posted 
on swallows. We call the white - breasted, 
square-tailed kind, with brilliant metallic-blue 
backs, martins; are we right? They build in 
little bird-houses all over the place. Then 
there are barn and chimney swallows. I have 
a perfect skeleton of a swallow found in a nest 
on my piazza, perfect. I wonder if you would 
like it? 

It ^ is a difficult task to chose among Mr. Whit- 
tier's poems those which I like best, there are 
so many that have become a part of my life, so 
many that appeal with resistless force to every 

1 To C. E. L. Wingate. Portsmouth, N. IT., November 22, 
1891. 



186 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1891 

thoughtful soul. I have always regarded him 
as New England's greatest lyric poet, essentially 
an outgrowth of her soil and rich with all her 
native picturesqueness and peculiar charm, ap- 
pealing to the hearts of her people with a direct- 
ness which does not fail to reach the lowliest as 
well as the most cultured. Our other famous 
poets are stars of the same magnitude doubtless, 
but of a different color, and the high, pure light 
of Whittier's genius burns clear and stands alone 
with an immortal beauty of its own, belonging 
to the things which are eternal. He is a power 
for good in his own land and in the world, a 
landmark up to which all struggling souls may 
look and gather fresh courage to climb. How 
many instances I recall in which I have seen his 
beautiful words comforting the weariness of age 
and inspiring with noble impulses the fiery heart 
of youth! Truly I know of no one who has 
been more revered and beloved. His very name 
is a symbol of Truth and unflinching integrity, 
and the good he has done comes back to him 
now in the blessing his friends and his country 
bring to him with the homage of their admiration. 

Nothing but sickness in the family would have 

prevented my replying to your ^ most dear and 

1 To Clara Kathleen Rogers. Portsmouth, January 2, 1892. 



1892] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 187 

kind letter long before this, but that I valued 
it most deeply I am sure you know. 

E 's little family have been with me for 

two months, absorbing every instant of my 
time, with the two babes, and in the last month 
both were ailing more or less with colds, and 
the elder had a severe attack of grippe, for 
such a little fellow, and I have been so anxious, 
so anxious I cannot express it to you. For 
when he grew better his mother had to leave 
him with us (for he wasn't fit to go) while 
she took possession, with the rest of the family, 
of their new little house in Cambridge ; and 
there is much to be done getting settled in 
a new house, you know, and a little baby in 
arms with its nurse, and trying to find a cook, 
and everything at once. So the sweet little 
Eliot stayed with his "granna,'' who wor- 
ships the ground he walks on, and counted every 
beat of his quick- fluttering little heart. Oh, I 
never meant in my old age to become subject 
to the thrall of a love like this! it is almost 
dreadful — so absorbing, so stirring, down to 
the deeps. For the tiny creature is so old and 
wise and sweet, and so fascinating in his sturdy 
common sense and clear intelligence, and his 
affection for me is a wonderful, exquisite tiling, 
the sweetest flower that has bloomed for me in 



188 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [18U2 

all my life through. Now that we have carried 
him home to Cambridge, I miss him so that it 
takes all my philosophy to meet the emergency. 
His toys, his books, all the tokens of his en- 
chanting presence, fairly wring my heart, for I 
want him every day and hour and minute. 
You will think me a demented old creature, I 
fear, but the whole thing is so new and strange 
and unexpected to myself that I can't get used 
to it. He is only three years old, this baby, 
but we converse as if he were quite as old as 
his granna! He is perfectly bewitching, tall 
as if he were five, in a suit of dark blue cloth, 
little breeches and blouse, and broad linen collar 
with a knotted necktie, soft and broad, under 
his chin; and his fair hair, like the yellow 
harvest moonlight, very fair and lustrous, cut 
close to his noble, compact head. How can 
his grandmother do anything but fall hopelessly 
in love with him! There's a little girl, too, 
like a wild rose, a year old, and she is charm- 
ing, but Eliot has carried all my heart away. 

I am sorry that your^ faces are turned away 
from the sea, but I dare say it is best for you, 
and I am sure it must be beautiful in Cornish. 
I am always longing to have the people I love 
1 To Mrs. Arthur Whiting. Portsmouth, January- 7, 1892. 



1892] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 189 

near me; that is my idea of heaven, just to 
have the souls that belong to me within reach, 
all the people with whom I am in sympathy, 
all, in a word, whom I love. But though I so 
seldom see you or hear of or from you, I never 
forget you and Arthur. I have the sincerest 
affection for you both, and it is always a joy to 
think of you together. 

I am thankful you are both well. Illness is 
such a terrible thing; and to have our dearest 
suffering, what a tug it is on the heart and soul 
of us! I am well, but must walk just such a 
path and no other to keep so, spending one 
half of every day out of doors, no matter where 
below zero the thermometer has gone, or what 
is falling from the clouds. 

Sometimes I find myself in Boston, on my 
way to my enchanting grandchildren, and if I 
ever can get a minute I will try to find you in 
your cozy nest. I know it must be charming 
where you and Arthur have made your home. 

I^ have been once more to Cambridge, flying 
back next day, to see my little boy, who is 
growing stronger, Heaven be praised, every day, 
though ho looks still pretty white and thin, but 
I think he is on the road to hcaltli and feel 
1 To Annie Fields. Portsmouth, January 10, 1892. 



190 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1892 

better about him. He clung to my neck. 
"Only one granna," he said, "only one! " He 
frightens me; if he were fifty instead of three 
he could not say more thoughtful things. 

I thought of you when I read that fine ar- 
ticle of Emerson's in the Atlantic. There is 
no one like him. Do you remember this pas- 
sage 1 — 

"It is the property of the religious sentiment 
to be the most refining of all influences. No 
external advantages, no good birth or breeding, 
no culture of taste, no habit of command, no 
association with the elegant, even no depth of 
affection that does not rise to a religious senti- 
ment, can bestow that delicacy and grandeur of 
bearing which belong to a mind accustomed to 
celestial conservations. All else is coarse and 
external, all else is tailoring and cosmetics, be- 
side this, for thoughts are expressed in every 
look and gesture, and these thoughts are as if 
angels had talked with the child." 

I did not know who wrote the article as I 
turned the pages of the magazine, looking at 
the opening lines of each; and the moment I 
read the first words of this, I found I could not 
stop, held by so fine a spell was I, and, turning 
to the cover to see who spoke with such a 
voice, lo! Emerson! No wonder I was held. 



1892] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 191 

In little more than another week, perhaps a 
fortnight, I hope to go once more for a night to 
my children, and then see you with these loving 
eyes. 

I enclose a grosbeak's foot, and must tell you * 
about it. Day before yesterday I was driving 
through deep sands, and right in the middle of 
the road lay a dead grosbeak, frozen stiff, on 
his back, and with this string fastened to his 
leg. Poor little thing! I picked him up, and 
have been wondering how under heaven that 
string ever got itself wound around his leg in 
such a way. It looks as if some one had tied 
it there, doesn't it? I send it to you because 
it is so curious; don't send it back. The place 
was far from any houses. I am sure it caught 
and caused the bird's death. I have been driv- 
ing this morning nearly to Mount Agamenticus, 
and we saw a large flock of grosbeaks alight in 
a tree ; they seemed to fill it full ; and a splen- 
did male in crimson sat on the top twig. I 
have never seen them here before that I remem- 
ber; isn't it remarkable that they stay all win- 
ter? 

Thank you for directing me towards the Club 

1 To Bradford Torrey. 47 State St., Portsmouth, Jan- 
uary 15, 1892. 



192 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1892 

in the Atlantic. I am always glad to find 
anything of yours anywhere. Do you know 
all about Kichard Jefferies 1 I am just learn- 
ing about him. His books are marvelous, and 
Walter Besant's "Life" of him, or rather "Eu- 
logy, " the most delightful thing I have seen for 
many a day. Sq close to nature he was, this 
poor Jefferies, and his life too short among 
those things he loved so deeply. His novels do 
not amount to much, I am told, but the others, 
that deal with out of doors, are simply wonder- 
ful and breathlessly interesting. 

Do tell me what you think of this tragedy of 
a string. 

I have done nothing but lament your ^ depart- 
ure ever since you went. Never was there 
such an exquisite summer, never such good 
times of Shoals kinds and sorts. Mr. William 
Winch is here, and he sings and sings, oh, how 
he sings! and he says every now and then, 
"This is what Miss Benedict likes," before he 
begins some especially divine song, and then 
we all regret you are not here to listen. 

Mr. Mason asks me to tell you that he has 
had some work for which he would have given 
much to have your assistance, so that he has 
1 To Evelyn Benedict. Shoals, August 28, 1892. 



1892] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 193 

missed you not only for reasons sentimental, 
but for reasons practical. We have just got 
through with the most immense storm I ever 
saw in the summer, and the surf has been be- 
yond all human description. People got up 
and came down in the middle of the night, 
thinking the island would be cast away ! They 
are out in the wet all the time. Appleton 
Brown brings in a new picture every five min- 
utes of the boiling breakers ! ! I am expecting 
Mr. Whittier presently, dear old man. He 
said, "I want to go once more to the Shoals." 
I think the very best thing that came to us 
this summer was the visit of Mr. Alden ("God 
in His World," you know). He read to us some 
chapters of his new book, "A Study of Death." 
Would you had been here to listen ! 

It was delightful to see your -^ handwriting and 
know you again at home. Dear Annie, has 
not Death been busy ? Everybody gone. Bry- 
ant, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Browning, 
Tennyson! Even dear Sam Longfellow has 
joined that mute procession, too. What an 
empty world it grows ! 

My brother is better, thank Heaven, — down 

1 To Annie Fields. 47 State St., Portsmouth, October 10, 
1892. 



194 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1892 

stairs, and I hope out of danger. I am go- 
ing to take him out of doors a little while 
to-day. 

Yesterday,^ when my brother and I were driv- 
ing through the deep woods, following the track 
of the woodcutters who are making such car- 
nage among the magnificent pines, we saw a 
bird, a wonderful bird. Near an open space 
where the lumber was piled (for there is a 
raving sawmill down there in the very heart 
of the woods), on the top rail of a fence, he 
alighted a moment close to us. He was larger 
than a robin, not so plump, but a good deal 
longer; his wings and tail were mottled black, 
white, and gray, but his whole body was the 
most delicious red color, all his feathers a kind 
of crimson and crushed-strawberry color, most 
vivid and delicate. We both thought his beak 
was roundish and blunt, something like a Java 
sparrow. We thought of crossbill and gros- 
beak, but it wasn't a crossbill, and I never saw 
a grosbeak so long and slender, and he was all 
over crimson, except his wings and tail. Now 
what was he ? Do tell us if you can. 

I wanted to tell you at the time of a flight 
of blackbirds we saw on the 21st of October. 
1 To Bradford Torrey. Portsmouth, December 14, 1892. 



1892] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 195 

There were thousands and thousands of them. 
We stopped our horse on the hilltop and 
watched them, darkening the sky above, beyond 
us, fully ten minutes before they had all flown 
over. I never imagined there could be so 
many blackbirds in the world. As near as we 
could judge, they were flying northwest, but 
I mean some time to take a little compass to 
that hilltop, to be sure. It was a very inter- 
esting sight. I shall look forward eagerly to 
your answer about our beautiful bird. He 
was simply perfect! 

I was so glad to have your ^ letter. Doubtless 
the bird was a grosbeak, though that first one 
was the largest I have seen. We see them 
every day in flocks of from five and six to a 
dozen or more. Yesterday a small flock filled 
a little tree, and at the top was a crimson one; 
such a bit of color in the sun, against the win- 
ter sky ! How charming they are ! Yesterday 
we explored a cart path leading up to a crest 
from which we got such a magnificent view of 
Great Bay that we stopped the horse and 
stayed there half an hour, just to gaze at tlie 
loveliness spread before us, and it was all we 
could do to come away at all. The bank 
1 To Bradford Torrey. Portsmouth, December 31, 1892. 



196 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1892 

sloped before us to the water, and was covered 
here and there with trees, and these were full 
of birds. The bay was calm as peace itself, 
reflecting everything upon its opposite coasts, 
and the blue hills of Eockingham County 
dreamed in heavenly sapphire and amethyst 
streaked with snow on the horizon. We started 
up a huge eagle that flapped off over our heads, 
rising from some tall nut and ash trees near. 
We saw woodpeckers on the tree trunks, and 
crows trotting about the ground. Chickadees 
made the still air cheery with their sweet talk; 
there were grosbeaks, as tame as city sparrows, 
and snowbirds that were not tame ; and a yel- 
low-hammer flapped his wings like a golden 
apparition from a dark pine. , The local name 
for them about here is " harry-wicket ; " have 
you heard it? I like it, though I can't think 
how it originated. We saw a flock of other 
small birds, grayish and slaty, that flew with 
sweet quavering cries; they lit in an apple tree" 
and made it alive; my brother said there must 
be as many as seventy-five in the flock. What 
were they, I wonder! What is a "siskin," by 
the way ? Out in the stream, where the turning 
tide was floating big cakes of ice down the bay 
(to the Piscataqna Eiver, just round the point 
to the north), we saw companies of jet-black 



1893] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 197 

crows and snow-white gulls sitting together on 
the blocks and gliding down together, shining 
in the sun. We saw a flock of black ducks, a 
couple of white geese, some oldwives, and a 
string of sheldrakes; they flew low and were 
reflected in the glassy water. Now, wasn't 
that a lot of birds to see in a winter morning ? 
A variety, I mean. Two or three days ago 
we saw a tiny bird feeding on grass- seed by the 
wayside. We thought at first it was a wren, it 
was so very small, but it flew into a little tree 
and we saw it was longer, slenderer, with a long 
tail. It was gray underneath and dark olive- 
black on the wings with bars of white. It did 
not seem to be afraid, but somehow we could n't 
get a good look at its back, nor study its gen- 
eral aspect as we wished. We wondered what 
that could be. 

I did read the " Beauty for Ashes " with the 
greatest pleasure, and thank you much for tell- 
ing me. I cannot aff'ord to lose anything you 
may write. 

Your ^ dear little note just came, and it makes 
my heart ache for you, and for myself^ and 
all of us. It is so hard, my darling Sophie, 
so cruel hard, not to see him again here, nor 
1 To Sophie Eichberg. Portsmouth, February 6, 189;J. 



198 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1893 

with these eyes, in the old familiar places, in 
the old way. Oh, I feel it so deeply myself, so 
deeply and so sadly, and what must you feel! 
I know it all, all the ache and sorrow of it. 
If death, that change we call death, meant the 
end of life, then indeed might despair settle 
upon us, but it is only change and separation 
for the time being; desperately hard and sad, 
but not forever. Oh no, no, no ! a thousand 
times no ! At our longest, we stay here so lit- 
tle while, and then seek our dear ones in that 
selfsame road they have traveled: who shall 
doubt that we find them, with all their love for 
us, again! 

Thank you ^ for your sweet letter and all your 
kind suggestions. I had already begun to 
"reef" my MS., and perceived at once, when I 
read it aloud, that it must be cut ever so much 
in places. Dear, you have given me a real 
helpful lift, because I have been doing this 
work without a particle of enthusiasm, in a 
most perfunctory manner, from the bits of 
notes I had made; and my mind has been so 
saddened by deep shadows for many months, 
somehow I had no heart in it at all. I am 
hoping, when I go to the Shoals presently, to 
1 To Sarah Orne Jewett. Poilsmouth. 



1893] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 199 

get some of the real flavor of the place and the 
work into it. It does n't satisfy me one bit. 
I began to write the introductory chapter right 
off", and shall I send it to you as you said ? I 
am so glad for every bit of criticism. I was 
so happy when I wrote the Shoals book — it 
wrote itself. I seemed to have very little to 
do with it anyway. But now the shadows are 
so long, and it grows so lonesome on this earth, 
and there is such a chill where there used to be 
such warmth and bliss ! 

Oh, you ^ dear and kindest, wisest and helpful- 
est ! I thought I should remember every one 
and every word of your suggestions when you 
spoke them, but, alas! I rack my stupid and 
empty brain in vain for most of them, com- 
ing home to my turning, cleansing, ripping, 
patching, fixing-over dressmaker. These petty 
nothings have filled my head with only cob- 
webs, so that, when I begin my introductory 
chapter, those precious notes you gave me are 
vanished and I grope for them again in vain. 
The Pintifore going down river like a May-day 
procession I remember ; the flowers being always 
young ; the fruits of sweet and bitter experience, 
and the Greek thing I was to ask Roland for, 
1 To Sarah Orne Jewett. Portsmouth, February 5, 1893. 



200 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1893 

but the others are all gone. Perhaps you may 
remember. I am ashamed to be so stupid, but 
so many little cares come bothering me and tak- 
ing what little sense I had. Pardon your loving 

Sandpiper. 

How good you were to copy for me, and all ! 

All this time and I have not audibly and visi- 
bly thanked you ^ for " Deephaven " ! but really 
and truly in my heart I have thanked you 
every day for the lovely thing. I never did see 
anything so enchanting, and the illustrations! 
every one so charming! Those Woodburys 
must be wondrous clever people. Karl says: 
"Will J ou please write to Miss Jewett and tell 
her there never was anything quite so delightful 
as ' The Only Rose ' story T' 

I am waiting for the proofs of my small 
" garden " book, and I am the tiredest bird that 
ever scratched for worms. Haven't had any 
"girl" since I came from the Shoals, except a 
little slip as goes to school, and isn't much 
more than a rag-baby anyway. Have written to 
Flower to see if she hasn't some young and 
needy being who wants to earn something and 
have a good home and be befriended. There 
must be plenty such, if one could find them. I 
1 To Sarah Orne Jewett. Portsmouth, 1893. 



1893] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 201 

don't care a bit whether she knows anything 
or not: I have infinite patience to teach any 
honest creature. 

Don't you and Mary ever come down to 
Portsmouth any more ? Do come ! 

An ^ old man in a shop here the other day said 
to me: "I went to bed real comfortable after I 
had read your poem about your grandchild. I 
thought 'twas beautiful.'/ That was so unex- 
pected, and pleased me so much, for I didn't 
know the old fellow much and it was so sur- 
prising. 

I thought of , who would say: "How 

can you say God watches us with kindness, 
when you think of the wrongs done to human- 
ity, the torments of Kussian Jews and peasants, 
the agonizing exile of Siberia, the plagues, pes- 
tilences, and famines, that visit the earth, the 
crimes, miseries, and tortures that everywhere 
exist?" 

I know it all, yet must I sing my little song 
to my little boy all the same. 

I send you^ one of Farquhar's catalogues, 

1 To Rose Lamb. Portsmouth, March 16, 1893. 

2 To Mrs. Horace Lamb. 47 State St., Portsmouth, March 
25, 1893. 



202 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1893 

marked, as I promised, and I want to say about 
the marks that they stand against flowers that 
I know about intimately; and the more marks 
you find, the more charming and desirable is the 
flower. I dare say you know about them all, 
and I know there are many that are as beau- 
tiful, perhaps, which I have not marked, but 
these 1 have indicated are all old friends and 
dear, and I am sure of them. 

I am sure you '11 have tulips and peonies 
(don't forget the single pink and white varie- 
ties of these) and lilies of all kinds, and don't 
forget the heavenly perennial larkspurs, — the 
divinest azure, rose, and safi'ron tints, — and 
sunflowers and hollyhocks and single dahlias 
(superb), kings' flowers, I call them, all colors; 
and the Oriental poppies, hardy and never fail- 
ing and gorgeous beyond description; perennial 
phloxes, especially the pure white and the rose 
color; Hydrangea grandiflora, — all these you 
know; and the tall Japanese anemones that are 
heavenly beautiful. Dear me! I get out of 
breath with the perennials before I think of 
reaching the dear flower-seeds for annuals. Be- 
fore I forget let me beg of you to have a bed of 
Iceland poppies, biennials that blossom the first 
year from seed, white, orange, and gold ; get the 
mixed seed ; they are simply enchan-ting. And 



1893] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 203 

the Shirley poppies are the most radiant vision, 
of all delicate shades of pink, and white just 
flushed with rose ; they make the garden look as 
if the dawn had fallen into it out of the sky. 
And annual stocks, or gillyflowers, are so satis- 
factory, — all colors and so fragrant. Wall-flow- 
ers are more fragrant than any flower that grows, 
I think. Don't forget the honeysuckles; the old 
monthly honeysuckle blossoms all summer and is 
most beautiful. Cobaea Scandens is a splendid, 
rapid climber, and its flowers most interesting 
and lovely, large bells that change from green to 
purple. There are so many I cannot mention 
half. Do have some rose campion, — rose of 
heaven, the dearest flower ! — and sweet- peas : 
the loveliest, most refined of the pale-pink kinds 
is Princess Beatrice; the richest pink, Adonis, 
a fine grower; the best red, carmine invinci- 
ble ; the best white, Victoria ; but all are beau- 
tiful. Amid so many splendid kinds one gets 
almost bewildered. Don't forget the butterfly, 
white with mauve edge, a beauty. All sorts of 
pinks, except the scentless Chinese, are delight- 
ful ; and the Margaret pinks are annuals, bloom- 
ing first year from seed sown in May. I have 
a boxful upstairs, all nicely started in egg- 
shells, to bloom in July. 

I wish I lived near, to see and know about 



204 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1893 

the lovely garden you will have. I haven't 
begun to talk about the flowers as I wish, but 
I might talk all day and not have done. You 
will have splendid pansies, I know; they want 
shades moisture (they must never get dry), and 
the richest stable manure. I am sure you will 
make a little Paradise. I wish, if there is any- 
thing you think I might tell you about to help, 
you would ask me. I should be so glad to 
give of my experience, which, though not large, 
is very thorough as far as it goes. 

Do write ^ and tell me about yourselves. I 
hear Mr. Booth is better, at least the newspa- 
pers say so, and that he is going with you to 
Narragansett Pier. Alas, poor man ! why can- 
not Fortune free him from his captivity of 
weakness and discomfort,, if not of pain, and 
the worn-out body be dropped for a fresh and 
happy one ! Oh, I trust, when my time comes, 
that I may be allowed to go in a moment. 
Death is not cruel, but life under such circum- 
stances is terrible; the long suffering with no 
hope of recovery is the misery, not the touch of 
death that opens the doors into a fresh, new 
world. 

Well, I want to know about it all, where 
1 To Ignatius Grossman. Shoals, June 4, 1893. 



J893] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 205 

you are and how it is with you beloved four, 
parents and children dear, as well as with the 
poor grandfather. Do write to me. I only 
hope all is well with you. 

Year ^ after next I am going to be sixty, and 
I am conscious of every bone in my skeleton 
every time I weed my garden, which is every 
day and pretty much all day. I have to keep 
out of doors to keep my health, and the time 
in my life has come when I am released from 
housework and can spend all the time I want 
to in my garden. 

Oh, the birds ! I do believe few people enjoy 
them as you and I do. The song sparrows 
and whitethroats follow after me like chickens 
when they see me planting. The martins al- 
most light on my head ; the humming-birds do^ 
and tangle their little claws in my hair; so 
do the sparrows. I hope some lovely things 
will come from that packet of seeds for a wild 
garden; there are beautiful perennials among 
them. 

How faithful and how kind you ^ are, always to 
remember me on my birthday! Your lovely 

1 To E. C. Hoxie. Shoala, June 4, 1893. 

2 To Fevolinc W. Fox. Shoals, Julv 1, 1893. 



206 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1893 

letter with its sweetly perfumed leaves was a 
real pleasure to me, and I thank you for it 
very heartily, and thank you for your interest 
in me and mine. Karl is with me. My two 
youngest sons are in Kittery. K-oland and his 
dear little family moved down there in the first 
week of June for the summer. Since he has 
had a professorship in Harvard, he has such 
long vacations that I cannot be grateful enough. 

The two grandchildren, little Eliot and 
Katherine, are fascinating to their grandmother ! 
Indeed, I don't think I ever realized what 
"fun" was until I became a grandmother! 
Isn't it delightful? 

I went over to see them the other day, and 
as Eliot and I were walking together and gath- 
ering wild strawberries, with the grass and 
daisies and buttercups higher than the little 
fellow's head, he said to me suddenly, apropos 
of nothing at all, "Are you very old, granna?" 
"Yes, dear," I said, "I am very old." He 
heaved a deep sigh and said, "I am very 
sorry." "But why, dear?" I asked. "Be- 
cause," he said, "I don't want you to be deaded 
before I am ! " He is only four years old, and 
troubling himself so much! 



1893] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 207 

I am pegging away hard on the book, and I 
want to ask you ^ lots of things. All you say 
is so precious, dear. I have got a little plan 
of the garden, as you suggested, with places of 
everything marked, — a sort of little map. I 
have got the whole thing about done, the writ- 
ing, but there is much copying and arranging 
of parts to make a proper unity. I have been 
so ill since the house closed, just about dead 
with the stress and bother of things and peo- 
ple, and feared to slip back to the hateful state 
of three years ago. The doctor said, "You are 
going to have the whole thing over again if you 
are not mighty careful," and mighty careful I 
have been and I am better. 

I loved "The Hiltons' Holiday." How you 
have a way of making dear, every-day, simple 
things, like that, more precious and delightful 
than all the festivals and theatres and enter- 
tainments that ever refreshed the soul of hu- 
manity ! It is so beautiful to do this in such 
an exquisite fashion. 

I^ am so delighted to hear of Edwina's "new 
departure," as it were; nothing could be better 

1 To Sarah Orne Jcwett. Shoals, September 28, 1893. 

2 To Ignatius Grossman. Portsmouth, November 24, 
1893. 



208 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1893 

than that she should do just this thing. No 
one could do it so well, and I am sure it will 
be the most interesting book imaginable, and so 
valuable, not only to the present age, but for 
time to come. I am glad she is doing it, 
— it is \vise and right and fitting that she 
should. She will reap a reward in the grati- 
tude of the world, and in the satisfaction of 
doing for her wonderful father what no one 
else could do, and of rendering full justice to 
his genius and his most marvelous powers, and 
all the beauty of his character, which no one 
knows so well as his dear, only child. I am 
perfectly delighted that she is doing it, I repeat, 
and congratulate her and you both with utmost 
love. 

How gladly, dear Ignatius,^ would I send you 
"Lilliput Levee," if I only had it here! It 
is out at the Shoals, and might as well be in 
Kamtschatka for any possibility of getting at it. 
I only bring a very few books in here, and I 
will try hard and see if I can't get it for you 
in Boston. Dear Ignatius, if you want the 
loveliest thing for your children, get "Parables 
from Nature," by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, and read 
"Not lost, but gone before," to your dear chil- 
1 To Ignatius Grossman. Portsmouth, January 19, 1894. 



1894] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 209 

dren. The heavenliest thing, and as good for 
you as them. There is an illustrated edition, 
and do get it right off ; you and Edwina will 
love it. 

Mrs, Gatty was the mother of Mrs. Juliana 
Horatio Ewing, whose books for children are 
world-famous, — "Jackanapes," and "Lob-lie- 
by-the-Fire," and "Daddy Darwin's Dove- 
cote," etc. If you haven't all her things, get 
them by all means at once! But "Parables 
from Nature" you must have, illustrated edi- 
tion. 

Mrs. Laura Howe Eichards's "Nursery 
Rhymes " for children are so good ! I dare say 
you have them, — "Little John Bottlejohn," 
etc. ; capital for very little ones. 

Do you^ think this is all right? Please tell 
me.^ Keep this a little secret, dear Rose. 

Rose, I wish I could see you again! 
When I ever shall get to town again I don't 
know. Like a limpet I am stuck fast to this 

1 To Rose Lamb. Portsmouth, January 20, 1894. 

2 Dedication of "An Lsland Garden," which Mrs. Hem- 
enwaj', alas! did not live to receive: — 

To Mrs. Maky IIkmicnway, 
whose "largeness of heart is 
even as the sand that is on 
the seashore," this little vol- 
ume is affectionatelv inscribed. 



210 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

spot. Have you seen Prentice Mulford's 
"White Cross " books? You would love them, 
they deal in such wonderful, splendid things. 

I 'm^ so glad I 'm here I don't know what to 
do. My Karl and I have been at work in the 
garden cleaning up sticks and "shack" and 
stuff, and pruning the roses and investigating, 
and having a beautiful time ; and the sea looks 
soft and heavenly, and the song sparrows are 
singing like mad, and the hens cackling and the 
Growers crowing; and here comes the dinner, 
and I '11 finish by and by. 

This morning the Pinafore was going to 
Portsmouth, and Mr. Oscar looked at the ba- 
rometer and saw it had dropped all of a sudden, 
way down. He cried out to Ed. to be off as 
quick as he could, for he knew that drop meant 
an awful northwester. He hurried them off, and 
Mr. Karl would go, too, to go to church, because 
it is Sunday. They hadn't been gone three 
quarters of an hour before all the devils in the 
black place seemed to be let loose ! I never saw 
it blow harder. A schooner came in with both 
masts blown right out of her ! and little dories 
off fishing almost swamped. They fear Kane is 
lost; all seemed to get in but he; everybody 
1 To Mina Berntsen. Shoals, March 31, 1894. 



1894] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 211 

thinks he is lost. We were worried about the 
Pinafore, and Mr. Oscar sat right down here 
(telegraph is on the steward's desk) and asked 
Fisher, at Portsmouth telegraph station, to send 
a boy down to the wharf to see if Pinafore had 
got in, and answer came, " Yes, I will right off," 
and in a few minutes the answer came again, 
" Yes, the Pinafore is at the wharf. '' Just think 
how splendid! for we should have worried all 
day and all night till the Pinafore got back, 
and we were able to hear she was safe in ten 
minutes, soon as a boy could be sent down to 
the Appledore wharf and back to find if she 
was in. 

I wish you could see our room. You never 
saw anything so splendid ! There are five win- 
dows now, and three of them are big and fine 
and blow up and down with your breath, and 
the others are being fixed ; and your bed and my 
bed to be in the new part, with gas over both, 
and every kind of convenience. Do you sup- 
pose we shall both die, having everything so 
fine ? Perhaps not. And you are to have the 
old closet for your things, and a great big, new 
one goes from the door where my bed used to 
be to the wall, and it will hold everything. 
I wish I could get some patterns of figured 
muslin to make some new curtains; for wo are 



212 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

so far out, Mr. Cedric's house, and the Clarks, 
and Browns, and Noyes's will have a full view 
of us, and we 've got to look out for curtains. 
We can see the steamer coming into the wharf, 
and the sunset. 

I cannot tell you ^ how beautiful it is to be here, 
and I wish for you every day. It is so still 
and heavenly and fresh and full of promise. I 
work all day long, mostly out of doors, and there 
are so many pleasant things to do. Not easy, 
there is a great deal of hard work, but I love 
it all; and I^rl is so good and helps me with 
the heaviest, and we have such a good time 
together. 

The garden is a wilderness of sticks and 
stalks and rubbish from last year, and it is a 
job to begin, after pruning the roses, to clear 
all this away, to dig up the hollyhock roots 
that have sowed themselves outside and trans- 
plant in the inside of the fence, to fork over 
and manure all the earth, etc. 

I have my mother's big, sunny room, with 
one opening out of it for Karl; and the large 
bay window is full of tables, and boxes of seeds 
that I am watching with as much delight as if I 
had never done it before. It is such a pleasure. 
1 To Rose Lamb. April 15, 1894. 



1894] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 213 

I am busy every instant, so glad and thank- 
ful to be here. No tongue can tell it; just to 
be here, it is all I ask. Sometimes I am afraid 
I enjoy it too much, and wonder what ever 
would become of me if I had to be away. 

There are many storms and much cold 
weather, but there is plenty of work for out- 
doors and in, and the days are never long 
enough. 

I feared we should get March weather at 
the wrong time. 

I 'm so sorry for all the buds that must have 
been chilled and spoiled. 

We ^ did not get a mail for more than a fort- 
night, and it was something prodigious. Now 
it is a week since the boat went to the land 
again. 

The telegraph told us yesterday that little 
Cyril had died of scarlet fever. Oh, what a 
blow for them ! How crushing ! Such a little 
angel as he was, and how they idolized him! 
How I pity his grandmother, too! 

Little Cyril, dancing on the lawn last sum- 
mer, looking like a little winged angel, with his 
exquisite hair flying, — ah me ! his father and 
mother can never be the same again; life can 
1 To Rose Lamb. Slioals, April 21, 1894. 



214 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

never be the same to them. Heaven keep lit- 
tle, sweet and to their worshiping 

father and mother. By what a thread it all 
hangs, dear Eose, our earthly joy! 

Your ^ letter just comes, and is a great happiness 
to me, — how great I really cannot express to 
you, and, to give you any idea of my pleasure 
in it, I must tell you that I have devoured 
every printed word of yours, since the first time 
I discovered you, with the most entire sympathy 
and loving appreciation. I was perfectly de- 
lighted last year to find in one of your Atlantic 
papers a quotation from some verses of mine, — 
Like a living jewel he sits and sings. 

Do you remember using it? I was so proud I 
wrote to Bradford Torrey about it, asking him 
if he had the happiness of knowing you. I am 
interested in all you have to say, and how I 
do wish I knew a fraction of what you do of 
the birds I love so much! They are indeed 
most dear to me, most charming. Last winter 
my brother made sixty martin-houses and put 
them up, and now we have more than a hun- 
dred in all, with a family in each. Everything 
we can do to attract the birds we do, and re- 

1 To Olive Thome Miller. Appledore, Isle of Shoals, 
May 27, 1894. 



1894] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 215 

joice in them with a continual joy. The black- 
birds and kingbirds and song sparrows, white- 
throats and bobolinks, live on the lawn half the 
time, and keep us in bliss with their voices and 
fascinating behavior. You see, in a little island 
like this, we have almost everything under our 
eyes, and are brought into most intimate rela- 
tions with all the various inhabitants. We 
won't have a cat on the place. A cuckoo yes- 
terday came and devoured the eggs in the song 
sparrow's nest under my window. What can 
be done under such trying circumstances as 
these, I wonder? This year two pairs of bobo- 
links are staying, and we breathlessly hope they 
are building somewhere, they have been here 
so long. All sorts of enchanting creatures 
come, just for an hour or two on favorable days; 
sometimes they will stay two or three, or a 
week, and vanish suddenly as they came. Last 
week, when I went early into my garden, a 
rose-breasted grosbeak was sitting on the fence. 
Oh, he was beautiful as a flower. I hardly 
dared to breathe, I did not stir, and we gazed 
at each other fully five minutes before he con- 
cluded to move. 

I 'm glad you found my book worthy. 
We must adore these things, our birds and 
our flowers, all these manifestations of Divine 



216 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

beauty, if we see them at all; don't you think 
so ? What can we say except that their beauty 
is "heavenly" and "divine"? I never think 
of the critics when I speak; it is my way of 
praising the Lord, to adore his beautiful work. 
In the poem you quoted, — 

I stand and worship the sky and the leaves, 
The golden ah- and the brilliant sea, 
The swallow at the eaves, — 

" worship " is the right word, it seems to me. 
There is such happiness in it! 

I thank you so much for this dear letter of 
yours. I treasure it among my most precious 
things. Truly I have an enthusiasm for you, 
and I 'm an old woman, almost sixty, and en- 
thusiasm at sixty means more than it does at 
sixteen, after one has been banged about 
through this strange and perplexing life of ours 
so many years. I wish I could see you. 

With thanks and thanks, and a love that has 
always been yours, 

I am yours most truly, 

Celia Thaxter. 

My very dear Friend, — I think you ^ can 
hardly imagine the delight with which I beheld 
your familiar handwriting again, just as firm 

1 To Mary Cowden Clarke. Appledore, Isles of Shoals. 



1894} LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 217 

and clear and fine as if six years had not passed 
over your lovely head since I saw it last. How 
well I remember the beauty of your soft, white 
hair, and the dainty cap with a little white satin 
bow like a moonbeam at top! I thought I 
never had seen anything so fascinating that day, 
long ago, when you welcomed so kindly the 
strangers within your gates. How good you 
were to us, all of you! And we have never 
ceased to gratefully remember it. My brother 
Oscar is sitting near as I write, and sends his 
dear love and says, "Tell her I donH want her 
to forget me," and wishes you had told us of 
"Portia" and "Valeria." They were charm- 
ing! How well I remember the latter, making 
lace on the crimson cushion! and I still have 
the bough of olive lovely Portia gave me, pinned 
against a piece of black velvet over my writing- 
desk, where I see it every day. 

I wonder — no, I am sure I have not told you 
I am a grandmother, and my hair is white as 
yours. I have two enchanting grandchildren, 
my youngest son Roland's little ones (we called 
him after that Childe Roland who "to the dark 
tower came "). One is five years old and one 
is three, and I am the only grandparent they 
have, and such a good time as I have with 
them! It can't be described! They call me 



218 LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

"granna." The eldest is a blond boy, Charles 
Eliot Thaxter, and calls himself Laliot, and is 
a born fascinator. And there is a little sis- 
ter, sweet as a pink-and- white sweet-pea. My 
Roland is a professor of cryptogamic botany at 
Harvard and they all live in Cambridge, the 
university town, where I can fly to see them 
every now and then. Prom the pretty little 
town house which holds these my treasures, 
the children, peering from the windows or at 
their play outside, see me coming afar off, and 
raise such a shout that the whole neighborhood 
turns smiling to look as they tear up the road 
to meet me, and fling themselves breathless about 
my knees and into my arms, crying, "Granna, 
granna ! " Laliot says, " Granna, I adore you ! " 
and little Katharine cries, " Granna, I love you 
every hreff ! " (breath). It is so beautiful to 
find such an unexpected fountain of delight in 
one's old age! 

Then here in my island my other brother, 
Cedric, has three little maids, E-uth, Margaret, 
and Barbara, the last only two years old; and 
they are a great pleasure, too, and keep one 
fresh, as nothing does so well as children, I 
think. 

I hear from our dear Annie Fields con- 
stantly; saw her not long since. Age haa 



1894] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 219 

touched her dark hair with gray, but she is 
quite the same. I mourn for your lovely gar- 
den. How I enjoyed walking about it with 
your brother that Christmas Day of 1880! I 
have been writing a book about my island gar- 
den and it is just out, and as soon as I can lay 
my hands on a copy I shall send one to you, 
within the next week, I hope. It is illustrated 
in color, and the pictures really give you an 
idea of the place, the island and the sea, and 
the wealth of bloom and color, and in ono 
picture I am coming out of the porch holding 
little Laliot by the hand. It is a true like- 
ness of my wilderness of bloom. Dear friend, 
I send most, most loving greetings to you and 
yours, your sister, all. 

I scribble this little line ^ flying, as it were, to 
beg you, when the whirl of people passes and 
tranquillity settles once more upon our little 
world, to steal a moment and slip down here 
and let us see ahd know you; will you not? 
Some of us may be slipping out of this mortal 
state, and '^^e shall never know each other in 
this particular phase of existence, which would 
be a pity, I think. 

1 To Bradford Torrey. Shoals, July 20, 1894. 



220 LETTEK'S OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

And so, indeed, Celia Thaxter slipped away 
from those who loved her, leaving suddenly 
this beautiful, sorrowful world, wherein she 
had loved and rejoiced and sorrowed with 
the children of men. No letters, no record, 
no description, can express adequately the 
richness and tenderness of her nature ; but in 
the vanishing of her large vitality she has 
drawn many a heart after her to scan more 
closely than ever before the slight veil sway- 
ing between the seen and the unseen. 

In the quiet loveliness of early summer, 
and before the tide of humanity swept down 
upon Appledore, she went for the last time, 
in June, 1894, with a small company of in- 
timate friends, to revisit the different islands 
and the well-known haunts most dear to 
her. The days were still and sweet, and 
she lingered lovingly over the old places, 
telling the local incidents which occurred to 
her, and touching the whole with a fresh 
light. Perhaps she knew that it was a fare- 
well; but if it had been revealed to her, she 
could not have been more tender and loving 
in her spirit to the life around her. 

How suddenly it seemed at last that her 
days with us were ended! She had been 
listening to music, had been reading to her 



1894] LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER 221 

little company, had been delighting in one 
of Appleton Brown's new pictures, and then 
she laid her down to sleep for the last time, 
and flitted away from her mortality. 

The burial was at her island, on a quiet 
afternoon in the late summer. Her parlor, 
in which the body lay, was again made radi- 
ant, after her own custom, with the flowers 
from her garden, and a bed of sweet bay 
was prepared by her friends Appleton Brown 
and Childe Hassam, on which her form was 
laid. 

William Mason once more played the 
music from Schumann which she chiefly 
loved, and an old friend, James De Norman- 
die, paid a brief tribute of affection, spoken 
for all those who surrounded her. She was 
borne by her brothers and those nearest to 
her up to the silent spot where her grave 
was made. 

The day was still and soft, and the veiled 
sun was declining as the solemn procession, 
bearing flowers, followed to the sacred place. 
At a respectful distance above stood a wide 
ring of interested observers, but only those 
who knew her and loved her best drew near. 
After all was done, and the body was at rest 
upon the fragrant lied prepared for it, the 



222 LETTEKS OF CELIA THAXTER [1894 

young flower-bearers brought their burdens 
to cover her. The bright, tear-stained faces 
of those who held up their arms full of flow- 
ers, to be heaped upon the spot until it be- 
came a mound of blossoms, allied the scene, 
in beauty and simplicity, to the solemn rites 
of antiquity. 

It was indeed a poet's burial, but it was 
far more than that: it was the celebration of 
the passing of a large and beneficent soul. 



INDEX 



" Ancient Marines," uncon- 
scious quotation from, 23. 

Anemones at Cannes, 118. 

Appledore, naming, 97. 

April, 1863, 24. 

Artichoke, river, 7. 

Artist, the homesick, 154. 

" Asolando," quoted, 172. 

Aspasia, judged woman by her 
handwriting, 22. 

" Aurora," Guido's, 9. 

"Aurora Leigh," 5. 

Babb's Cove, 30. 

Baiae, 114. 

Ball in Boston, 36. 

Bangs, Edward, 22. 

Bangs, Mrs., 22. 

Beethoven, 42, 43, 93, 

Benedict, Evelyn, letter to, 192. 

Berntsen, Mina, letter to, 210. 

Birds, a niglit visit from, 83, 84 ; 
worn by women, 146, 172, 175 ; 
at Appledore, 161-163, 166- 
168, 175, 176, 183-185, 214, 
215; letters about, 194, 195- 
197. 

Birds, enemies of, 154, 181. 

Birds, killed by lighthouse, 40, 
173. 

Birmingham, 103. 

Bjiiruson, B., 117. 

Blackmore, R. D,, 91. 

Boar's Head, 36. 

Booth, Edwin, 204. 

Booth, Edwina, 143, 207. 

Boreas, brother, 99. 



Bowditch, Margaret I., letter Us 

147. 
Braveboat Harbor, accident in, 

147. 
Bronte, Charlotte, Mrs. Gaskell'a 

book about, 8. 
Brown, Appleton, paints picture 

of Mrs. Thaxter's garden, 87 ; 

221. 
Bull, Mrs. Ole, letter to, 134. 
Butcher-bird, canary killed by, 

147. 
Butterfly in winter, 157. 

Cannes, 118, 119. 
Capri, 112, 114. 
Champernowne, Sir Arthur, 97, 

98. 
Champernowne, Sir Francis, 97, 

98. 
Champemownes, name Thaxter 

in old records of, 98. 
Campagna, 113. 
Campanile, Venice, 109. 
Cannon Point, 31. 
Cat and sandpipers, 130, 131. 
Christiansen, Anethe, 45-49. 
Christiansen, Ivan, 45, 48. 
Christiansen, Karen, 45-49. 
Clarke, Mary Cowden, 115, 116 ; 

letter to, 216. 
Clarkes, the Cowden, letter and 

flowers from, 72. 
Comet, 133, 134. 
Curtis, George, 3, 45. 

Dana, Charlotte, 147. 



224 



INDEX 



Dante's fresco, 114; his house, 

114. 
Darrah, Robert, funeral of, 143. 
Dart, river, 97. 
Dartington, Thaxter residence 

at Kittery Point, 97. 
Death, not dreadful, 142 ; joy 

and comfort in, 144 ; is merely 

change, 183. 
"Deephaven," Miss Jewett's, 

200. 
De Normandie, James, 221. 
Derby, Lucy, letter to, 90. 
Derby, Richard H., 80. 
Dickens, Charles, 29. 
Dijon, 121. 
" Dred," 5. 
Duck Island, wreck on, 64. 

Eichberg, Anna, letters to, G4, 
75, 76. See Bang. 

Eichberg, Juliut, song set to 
music by, 61 ; 62, 139 ; letter 
to, 133 ; death, 197. 

Eichberg, Mrs. Julius, letter to, 
124. 

Eichberg, Sophie, letter to, 197. 

Emerson, R. W., quoted, 190. 

English lady, found Pompeii ex- 
tremely dull, 120; and "Cae- 
sar's statue," 121. 

Evving, Juliana Horatia, 209. 

Exemplary, being, a great bore, 4. 

Field, John, 107. 

Field, Mrs., 107, 108. 

Fields, Annie, letters to, 24, 25, 
28, 41, 55, 69, 70, 78, 80, 84, 88, 
91, 93, 96, 97, 98, 100, 105, 111, 
118, 125, 126, 128, 129, 132, 135, 
145, 154, 157, 160, 179, 189, 
193 ; 218. 

Fields, James T., letters to, 23, 
24, 26, 27, 29, 98, 118. 

Fiske, John, 151. 

Florence, trees at, 113 ; 114. 

Flowers seen from a car window, 
129. 



Folsom, George, 20, 21, 24. 

Folsom, Mary, 25. 

" Forebodings," song set to mu- 
sic by Julius Eichberg, 61, 

Fox, Feroline W., letters to, 
49, 51, 57, 58, 93, 142, 145, 
205. 

Friendship, a heavenly thing, 
28. 

Gatty, Mrs. Alfred, 208, 209. 
Gilder's, R. W., poem "The 

New Day," 80. 
God's expression of himself, 178. 
Gondolas at Venice, 110. 
Gorges, Sir Ferdinaudo, 97. 
Gosling Road, in Newington, 

181. 
Grand Canal, Venice, 110. 
" Grave, The," poem Hawthorne 

liked best, 42, 
Griefs God sends, easy to bear, 

179. 
Grossman, Arpid Sandor, letter 

to, 63. 
Grossman, Ignatius, 143 ; letters 

to, 204, 207, 208. 
" Guest, The Heavenly," poem, 

160. 

Handwriting, woman judged by, 

22. 
Hans, adventure of, 65-68. 
Happiness, pursuit of, compared, 

54. 
Hassam, Childe, 221, 
Hawk, hospitality not extended 

to, 154. 
Hawthorne, Miss, 42. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, where he 

wrote the " Scarlet Letter," 

42 ; poem he liked best, 42. 
Headgear of Italian women, 105. 
Headgear, women's, horrors of, 

146, 172, 175. 
Hemenway, Mary, "An Island 

Garden" dedicated to, 209 

note. 



INDEX 



225 



Hep worth, Adaline, letters to, 
155, 174, 177, 178. 

Herculaneum, 114. 

Hontvet, John, 45. 

Houtvet, Marie, 45-48. 

Housekeepers, exemplary, 3. 

Howells, W. D., returns Mrs. 
Thaxter's MS., 71. 

Howland, Rachel, 142. 

Hoxie, Anson, 17,18,44; letter 
to, 36. 

Hoxie, Elizabeth C, letters to, 1, 
3, 8, 10, 14, 19, 43, 44, 205. 

Hoxie, Nanny, 2, 3, 14, 15 ; let- 
ter to, 17. 

Human shuttlecocks and battle- 
dores, 43. 

Humbert, King, 112. 

Hunt, William M., 41, 85, 93, 94 ; 
his tragic end, 95, 9G ; Titian's 
busts like, 110. 

Huxley, Professor, 61. 

" Inverted Torch, The," by 

Edith M. Thomas, 180 note. 
Irving, Henry, 124. 

Jefferies, Richard, 192. 
Jewett, Sarali Orne, 129, 160, 
171 ; letters to, 198, 199, 200. 

Kane, Dr. E. K., 5. 
Keats's grave, 113. 
Keen, Capt. William Henry, 64, 

66. 
King, Anna Eichberg, letters, 

181, 182. See Eichberg. 
Kittery Point, 97. 

Laighton, Cedric, 30, 65, 76, 

149, 153, 161, 166, 218. 
Laighton, Oscar, 31, 33, 49,65, 

217. 
Lamb, Mrs. Horace, letter to, 

201. 
Lamb, Rose, letters to, 147, 148, 

149, 151, 152, 1()3, 164, 165, 201, 

212, 213. 



"Land - Locked , " poem, xiv ; 

christened by Lowell, 23. 
Lang, Mrs., letter to, 131. 
Larcom, Lucy, 33. 
Lighthouse, birds killed by, 40, 

173. 
Little Island, 31. 
Londoners' Island, wreck on, 

73-76. 
Lone Star, lost, 70. 
" Lorna Doone," Blackmore's 

novel, 91. 
Lowell, James R., christened 

Mrs. Thaxter's poem "Land- 
Locked," 23. 
Lyons, 116, 117, 119 ; museum 

at, 120. 

"Mabel Martin," sent to Mrs. 
Thaxter, 72. 

Maples looking as if they had 
had a good time, 69. 

Margherita, Queen, 112. 

Marseilles, 119. 

Mason, William, 151, 152, 164, 
192, 221. 

Mediterranean, 92, 112. 

Meeting-house on Star Island, 
35. 

" Men and Women," Brown- 
ing's, 9. 

Men, a wilderness of, 50. 

Micliael Angelo's house, 114; 
relics, 115. 

Milan, gold carnations at, 105; 
clironic opera, 105 ; female 
headgear, 105 ; sights in the 
streets, 105 ; performance in 
the cathedral, 106. 

Miller, Olive Thorne, letter to, 
214. 

Mind, writing to a, 169. 

" Minister's Woohig," killing 
good, 17. 

"Modern Painters," Ruskin's, 6. 

Mohini, 135, 140, 141. 

Mona(!o and its rare blooms, 123. 

Morglien, Uaphacl, engraver, 9. 



226 



INDEX 



Morland, Captain, 99. 
Mummies for fuel, 119. 

Naples, unspeakable squalor of, 
111 ; compared with North 
Street, Boston, 111 ; its only 
cheerful element, 112 ; muse- 
um at, 114. 

Nature, how to enjoy, 54. 

North Street, Boston, compared 
with Naples, 111. 

Nova Scotian, a p;rateful, 35. 

Novello, Miss, 115. 

Novello, Villa, 115. 

November day made warm and 
bright, 63. 

Opera, Italian, eternal and 
chronic, 105. 

Padelford, M. L., letter to, 156. 

Paine, Mrs., 93. 

Paine, Prof. J. K., 93, 138, 151, 

164, 165. 
Paris, 122, 123. 
Parker, Theodore, his wonderful 

sermon, 6 ; he looked a god, 7; 

effect of his preaching, 7. 
Parkmah, Miss, 60. 
Parrot, story about, 33. 
Pierce, Elizabeth D., letters to, 

45, 60. 
Pilgrim, yacht, 32, 74. 
Pinafore, steamer, 151, 157, 199, 

210, 211. 
Po Hill, 36. 
Pompeii, 113, 120. 
Portici, 113. 
Posilippo, 114. 
Pozzuoli, 114. 
Priest, living image of John G. 

Whittier, 106. 

Renunciation, meaning of, must 

be learned, 173. 
Resina, 113. 
Rialto, tlip, 110. 



Richards, Laura H., 209. 
Richards, Miss, of Boston, 135. 
Rings, women's, 120. 
Rivier.i, 118. 

Robbius, Ellen, letter to, 148. 
Rogers, Clara Kathleen, letter 

to, 186. 
Rosa Salvator, 109. 
Rote which bodes a storm, 31. 

Sandpipers and cat, 130, 131. 
"Scarlet Letter," where it waa 

written, 42. 
Schiller, quoted, 145. 
Science, murdering in the name 

of, 29. 
Scriptures, the, value of, 141. 
Shakespeare's sonnets, beauty of , 

137, 138, 170. 
Shelley's grave, 113. 
Shepard, Miss, 42. 
Shuttlecocks and battledores, 

human, 43. 
Silence, absolute, 148. 
Skunk cabbage flower, adventure 

with, 28. 
Slavery, the awful word, 25. 
Smutty-Nose Island, murder at, 

45-49. 
Song sparrows at sea, 99. 
Star Island, old meeting-house 

on, 35. 
Star Islander, an ancient, 34. 
St. Marguerite, Island of, 118. 
St. Mark's, Venice, 109. 
Sunday, an enchanting, 25. 

Taylor, Bayard, 27. 

" Tent on the Beach," 27. 

Thaxter, in old Champernovyne 
records, 98. 

Thaxter, Celia, the only record 
of her childhood, 1 ; earliest 
letter, 1 ; family and young 
friends, 2 ; being exemplary a 
great bore, 4; a steady old 
drudge, 4 ; husband and chil- 



INDEX 



227 



dren, 5, 6 ; home enjoyments, 
5; enthusiasm for Dr. Kane, 
5 ; admiration for Ruskin, 6 ; 
hears Theodore Parker preach, 
6, 7 ; reads Charlotte Bronte's 
books with rapture, 8; "Oh, 
for your patience ! " 9 ; Brown- 
ing's "Men and Women," 9; 
the Whittier poem, 10 ; do- 
mestic trials and pleasures, 11, 
12 ; getting rid of things, 12 ; 

K 's education, 12 ; devours 

books and peels squash, 13 ; 
reading "Quits," 13; stabs of 
conscience, 14 ; in raptures 
with her baby, 15; difficulty 
in naming him, 15, 16 ; a new 
set of silver, 16; wants hare- 
bell seeds, 17 ; describes a 
dreadful storm, 18 ; overrun 
with things and people, 19 ; 
had a good time at the island, 
20 ; a travel-stained Cleopatra, 
21 ; her india-rubber pen, 22 ; 
her neat letters, 22 ; beneath 
Aspasia's notice, 22 ; first hint 
of her literary life, 23 ; un- 
conscious quotation from the 
"Ancient Mariner," 23; her 
poem " Land-Locked," xiv, 23 ; 
love for the sea, 24 ; delicious 
hours at Waltham, 25 ; dreads 
the cold, 25 ; longs for the 
sea, 26 ; rhymes keep her alive, 
26 ; hates the snow, 27 ; friend- 
ship a heavenly thing, 28 ; 
meets Cliarles Dickens, 29 ; 
winter life at the Shoals, 30- 
36; her parrot, 33, 52; visit 
from an ancient islander, 34 ; 
bird friends, 37, 38 ; moored on 
Appledore for seven months, 
39, 40 ; a happy time at Ames- 
bury, 43 ; her scattered family, 
44; the murder on Smutty- 
Nose, 45-49 ; a fixture at the 
Shoals for the winter, 49 ; de- 
votion to her mother, 49 ; iso- 



lation, 50 ; spite against the 
northwest wind, 50 ; misses her 
boys, 50 ; winter quarters, 51 ; 
window gardens, 51 ; a word 
of kindness precious, 52 ; bird 
visitors, 53 ; gathering moss, 
53, 54 ; hates to be without a 
purpose, 53 ; how she enjoyed 
Nature, 54 ; a terrible disaster, 
55 ; too much alone, 56 ; com- 
munications open again, 57 ; 
world never so beautiful be- 
fore, 57 ; prefers the sand- 
piper's call, 57 ; more than 
content, 57 ; a vexation, 58; 
wrestles with art, 58 ; wants 
to paint everything, 58, 60 ; art 
opens a new Mrorld, 59 ; the 
red leaf, 59 ; her room so cosy, 
59 ; summer has gone, 60 ; the 
wildest wild night, 60 ; her 
birthday, 60 ; her mother bet- 
ter, 60 ; song " Forebodings " 
set to music, 61 ; interested in 
Tyndall and Huxley, 61 ; the 
desolate cottage, 62 ; October 
days, 62 ; dreads the winter, 
03 ; glows with joy, 63 ; misses 
people and things, 63 ; de- 
scribes wreck on Duck Island, 
64; going to Montpelier, 68; 
ride among the mountains, 68, 
69 ; nice people, 69 ; peace 
from being fitly bonneted, 70 ; 
an indescribable storm, 70 ; 
Ilowells returns her MS., 71 ; 
must set her constructive fac- 
ulty to work, 71 ; .so blue, 71 ; 
Whittier's letter and gift, 72 ; 
reads Howells's story, 72; 
grateful for a letter, 72 ; seek- 
ing seaweed for the Cowden 
Clarkes, 72 ; in a choking 
snowstorm, 73 ; tlio wreck on 
Londoners', 73-76 ; afraid of 
the beaches, 74, 77 ; visits the 
wreck, 7o, 77 ; experiences in 
an April storm, 78, 79 ; ii pep- 



228 



INDEX 



per-box from the wreck, 79; 
makes a sofa cushion, 79 ; wild 
about Gilder's "The New 
Day," 80; a shock, 81; her 
mother's continued illness, 83 ; 
so tired, 83 ; in Portsmouth 
over night, 83 ; has a night 
visit from birds, 83, 84 ; paints 
a tile, 84, 85 ; Hunt's criticism, 
85 ; morning duties, 85 ; Nor- 
wegian treasures, 85; a win- 
ter's painting, 86 ; Appleton 
Brown's picture of her garden, 
87 ; her mother's death, 88 ; 
and burial, 90 ; her mother's 
plants, 91 ; reads "Lorna 
Doone," 91 ; on her piazza, 91, 
92 ; a heaven-sent musician, 93 ' 
a morning at Portsmouth, 9u , 
removal to Kittery Point, 97 ; 
Dartington, 97 ; sails for Eu- 
rope, 98 ; how the ship be- 
haved in a storm, 98, 99 ; ex- 
periences during the voyage, 
99, 100 ; reaches Liverpool, 100 ; 
visits St. George's Hall, 101 ; 
at the art exhibition, 102 ; 
dines with the captain, 102 ; 
spends a day on Chester wall, 
103 ; what Birmingham looked 
like, 103 ; in love with the 
English girls, 104; at Strat- 
ford, 104 ; Milan, 105 ; arrival 
at Venice, 107 ; meets Mr. and 
Mrs. John Field, 107 ; her room 
over the Grand Canal, 108 ; the 
singer, 108 ; visits the Doges' 
Palace, 108; St. Mark's, 109; 
the Campanile, 109 ; the shops, 
109 ; the Palazzo Giovanelli, 
109 ; the gondolas, 110 ; Titian's 
dear little virgin, 110 ; im- 
pressed with busts of Titian, 
110 ; Naples, 111, 112, 114 ; 
decorates the graves of Keats 
and Shelley, 113 ; visits Mrs. 
Cowden Clarke at Genoa, 115 ; 
the Villa Novello, 115, IIG ; 



at Lyons, IIG, 117, 119, 120; 
the English lady and Pompeii, 
120; story about "Caesar's 
statue," 121 ; writes verses 
for "St. Nicholas," 121; 
whirled like a leaf in a hurri- 
cane, 122 ; in Paris, 122, 123 ; 
a poor little pauper with a cold 
nose, 123 • sees Ellen Terry 
and Irvmg in London, 124 ; 
returns home, 124 ; sends Mrs. 
Eichberg a little poem, 124 ; 
her household jewel, 124; 
paints a pitcher for Mr. Ware, 
125 ; its Greek inscription, 126 ; 
" doings " at home, 126, 127 ; 
her home on fire, 128 ; a nar- 
row escape, 129 ; flowers seen 
from a car window, 129, 130; 
sandpipers and cat, 130, 131 ; 
a gift of roses, 132 ; some- 
thing the matter with the 
world, 133 ; views the comet, 
133, 134; story of her pho- 
tograph, 135 ; has a lovely, 
hard-working spring, 135 ; her 
garden's enemies, 136, 137 ; 
writes about Shakespeare's 
sonnets, 137, 170 ; her soul's 
development, 138 ; finds light 
through music, 139 ; interested 
in spirit communication, 139 ; 
attracted by theosophy, 140 ; 
how truth came to her, 140 ; 
Mohini's teaching, 140 ; be- 
comes a follower of Christ, 
141 ; the scheme of things 
made clear, 141 ; reads in the 
women's prison, 142 ; death no 
longer dreadful to her, 142, 
144 ; goes to a wedding, 143 ; 
and to a funeral, 143 ; words 
of comfort, 144; listens to 
Mohini, 145 ; on wearing birds, 
145, 146, 172, 175 ; her canary 
killed by a butcher-bird, 147 ; 
a beautiful day, 148 ; alone in 
the big parlor, 148, 149 ; hap- 



INDEX 



229 



py to be at the island, 149 ; a 
spring storm, 150 ; listens to 
Mr. Fiske's lecture, 151 ; mu- 
sic and stories, 151 ; on her 
piazza, 151 ; tame birds, 153 ; 
a grandmother, 154 ; her Ports- 
mouth home, 155, 156 ; illness, 
157, 159 ; a winter butterfly, 
157; at the island, 157-159; 
has an imcertain feeling, 158, 
182 ; wrapped up in measure- 
less content, 159 ; her version 
of Tolstoi's poem, 160 ; the 
overworked girl, 160 ; writes 
to Bradford I'orrey about the 
birds, 161-163, 166-168, 171, 
172, 175-177, 181, 183-185, 
161, 195-198 ; exquisite days, 
163-165; her Alma Tadema, 
164 ; Bradford Torrey's books, 
168, 170; fighting with ner- 
vous prostration, 174 ; terribly 
ill, 177 ; the autumn rain, 178 ; 
the box of toads, 179 ; Miss 
Thomas's verses, 180 ; dreads 
a long, suffering illness, 182 ; 
feels the loss of Mr. Ware, 182 ; 
wants a bird talk with Mr. 
Torrey, 185 ; opinion of Whit- 
tier, 185, 186 ; her grandchil- 
dren, 187-190, 206 ; her idea of 
heaven, 189 ; the tragedy of 
a string, 191 ; an exquisite 
summer, 192 ; an immense 
storm, 193 ; Mr. Alden's visit, 
193 ; an empty world, 193 ; sees 
a wonderful bird, 194 ; death 
of Julius Eichberg, 197 ; at 
work on " An Island Garden," 
198-200 ; waiting for proofs, 
200 ; a grateful old man, 201 ; 
sends a seed catalogue to Mrs. 
Lamb, 201 ; lias to keep out of 
doors, 205 ; pegging away liard 
on the book, 207 ; dedicates it 
to Mrs. Hemenway, 209 note ; 
her garden, 212; enthusiasm 
at sixty, 216 ; " some of us 



may be slipping out," 219; 

last visit among the islands, 

220 ; her days ended, 220 ; a 

poet's burial, 221, 222. 
Thaxter, Charles Eliot, 154, 187, 

188, 206, 218. 
Thaxter, John, 2, 9, 11, 20, 22, 

39, 44, 147. 
Thaxter, Karl, 2, 9, 11, 17, 20, 

22, 39, 40, 44, 45, 00, 05, 127, 

148, 159, 206, 210, 212. 
Thaxter, Levi, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 

13, 15, 16, 20, 21, 24, 29, 36, 39, 

43, 44, 94, 125. 
Thaxter, Roland, 16 ; carries a 

skunk cabbage flower to school, 

28 ; 126, 154, 199, 206, 218. 
Terry, Ellen, 124. 
Theosophy, 140. 
Thomas, Edith M., 180. 
Time frittered away by elegant 

young ladies, 10. " 
Tintoret, 109. 
Titian, 109 ; his busts so like 

William Hunt, 110. 
Toads, a box of, 179. 
Torrey, Bradford, letters to, 161, 

162, 106, 1G8, 1G9, 170, 171, 175, 

183,191,194,195,219. 
Truth, test of, 141. 
Turner, Ross, letter to, 137. 
Tyndall, Professor, 59, 61. 

Venice, 107-111. 

Venus bright as a young moon, 

31. 
Veronese, Paul, 109. 
Verses can grow when prose 

can't, 26. 
Vesuvius, 112, 114. 
Virgin, Titian's, 110. 

Wagner, Louis, 45-48. 

Walker's, E. D., " Reincarna- 
tion," 150. 

Ware, Mr., Mth. Tliaxter paints 
a vase for, 125; 182, 183. 

WoisK, Carl, 1 17. 



230 



INDEX 



WeiBs, Henry, 20. 

Weiss, John, resigns ministry at 

New Bedford, 16 ; preached 

like one possessed with a spirit 

of good, 25 ; letters to, 59, 61, 

63,68. 
White Island, brig ashore on, 73. 
Whiting, Arthur, 148. 
Whiting, Mrs. Arthur, letter to, 

173, 188. 
Whittier, John G., 72, 117, 132; 

letters to, 30, 42, 140, 158 ; his 

genius, 186. 



Wilde, Hamilton, 107. 
Wilderness of men, 50. 
Winch, William, 192. 
Wind, the demoniacal northwest, 

50. 
Wingate, C. E. L., letter to, 185. 
Women, birds worn by, 146, 172. 
Women, Italian, headgear of, 105. 
Woodbury, Charles H. and Mar- 

cia O., 200. 
World, an empty, 193. 
World, something the matter 

with, 133. 



718 



^' V ^ -» -^i ,A 



\^ ^^. 



,0- 



• 0, 'c 



'''f,. ..-V 












'oo^ 






.^^ -n^ 



vO^ 






-■ V, * 






.^^^ 



o,;^\^,^ 









-^. <^^ 






^;^ '%. ^%S 






f i 






I- ^^ 
















^<^^ 

.x^^'^- 






\ 






^ fl"^ .'^ 



cf 









<P 



.# 




1^: 







•rf- 



.^ .^ %• '^.^W/ '^' %. \'i 



'%/, 






,^N' 



OO' 









v-*, 



•'^ V 



^^' 



'J' 












h ^, 


,% 










■f 







o,^ 



-f'^ 









' Till 

"■4 

• ;•■ :if 

.i:.u 
>'rd 
'"M 












I?W 



: '"iH'.'t'iiHilli 



